More and more importance has been attached to inductively coupled plasma (ICP) in semiconductor manufacture. For a deep understanding of the plasma discharge process in the etching reactor, this study made a three-dimensional simulation on the Ar plasma discharge process with the commercial software CFD-ACE, which is according to the real experiment conditions and data supplied by North Microelec-tronic Corporation. The error of the simulation results is in the range of ±20% with credibility. The numerical results show that the three-dimentional spatial distribu-tion of electron density is reduced from the chamber center to the wall. The distri-bution of electron density, electron temperature and power deposition is related to the shape and placement of the coil.
