Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) is a critical technology for the deposition of thin films on silicon wafers. Compared to other technologies such as sputtering, evaporation and molecular beam epitaxy, it offers good control of film composition, film uniformity, as well as excellent growth rates. CVD processes are characterized by complex interaction of fluid dynamics, and chemical kinetics, which are determined by process conditions such as pressure, temperature, species concentration, flowrates, and by the reactor geometry.

Fluent's CFD software provides the important physics required for CVD reactor modeling, including gas phase/surface reaction chemistry, multicomponent and Soret diffusion, natural convection, non-grey radiation with participating media, and the ability to include fully compressible flow regions. (Special stiff solvers ensure robust model performance and slip boundary conditions are provided for LPCVD.). Hybrid grids, consisting of mixed hexahedral and tetrahedral elements, let you include important details to ensure accuracy without sacrificing model size.

Contours of deposition rate on a substrate in a CVD reactor reveal a non-uniform distribution due to the hole spacing design in the baffle plate.

Some of these techniques include:

Barrel-type CVD Reactor
Epitaxy/MOCVD
Metal CVD
Plasma CVD