GP Plasma forms Collaboration with Arizona Thin Film Research

The GP plasma team recently worked with Patrick Morse from Arizona Thin Film Research (AZTFR) on a Roll to Roll coating chamber upgrade of the Magnetron design to improve deposition uniformity. AZTFR focuses on Digital Twin Simulation and Process Optimization Consulting for Large Area Sputtering. Using a COMSOL Multiphysics package, AZTFR will help GP Plasma optimize deposition uniformity, target utilization, and production yields for its retrofit customers.

In a recent project, Patrick and his team were tasked with improving deposition uniformity of a roll to roll coater that GP plasma was retrofitting.

GP Plasma needed to improve the cross-web uniformity of a customers planar cathodes. The as-built uniformity on a web roughly the length of the straightaways of the target was in the range of +/-13% due to the deposition rate drop-off at the turnarounds and the customer requited better than 10+/-% uniformity.

With the planar cathodes and surrounding deposition area modeled in COMSOL Multiphysics, static magnetic fields and electric fields were used to determine the Lorentz forces. The magnitude of these forces on the surface of the target was then used to generate a molecular flow model to simulate material deposition from the cathodes onto the substrate. While this was a good first-order uniformity plot that followed the trend of the measured uniformity on the web, it was more uniform than actual results due to the lack of a cross-corner effect.

Nevertheless, trim masking shields were designed to improve the uniformity by a factor of two (in the model) that translated directly to the measured results with a final uniformity achieved of less than +/-5%. An outstanding achievement and result for the customer.