Patent 7139632 was granted and assigned to Lam Research on November, 2006 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A method for enhancing a process and profile simulator algorithm predicts the surface profile that a given plasma process will create. An energetic particle is first tracked. The ion fluxes produced by the energetic particle are then recorded. A local etch rate and a local deposition rate are computed from neutral fluxes, surface chemical coverage, and surface material type that are solved simultaneously.