A Simple Equation for Predicting Superconformal Electrodeposition in Submicrometer Trenches

We present a single variable first-order differential equation for predicting the occurrence of superconformal electrodeposition. The equation presumes that the dependence of deposition rate on surface coverage of the accelerator is known ( e.g. , derived from voltammetry experiments) on planar electrodes. A simplified growth geometry, based on the recently proposed mechanism of curvature enhanced accelerator coverage, is used to permit simplification of the trench-filling problem. The resulting solution is shown to reduce computational time from hours to seconds, while yielding reasonably accurate predictions of the parameter values required for trench filling. © 2001 The Electrochemical Society. All rights reserved.