Various configurations have been employed
for chemical vapor deposition. We'll consider some of the reactor
designs commonly encountered in semiconductor fabrication and
related fields:
horizontal or vertical tube reactors
showerhead
high-density plasma
linear injector
Each design employs different methods for
performing the fundamental operations common to all CVD reactors:
dispensing gases, controlling temperature, introducing a plasma
if desired, and removing byproducts.
For each design, we'll perform a simplified
transport analysis to get some idea of how gases move around
in the system, what regimes the system operates in, and what
parameters are likely to be important in determining film deposition
rate and uniformity.
We'll also discuss various practical aspects
of making the reactors work: how to hold wafers or substrates
in place, how to control their temperature, what is easy and
hard to do with each reactor configuration.
