Computational performance of level set methods for etching, deposition, and lithography development

The application of level set techniques to problems of two and three dimensional surface evolution in etching, deposition, and lithography development have been described. The techniques are robust, accurate, unbreakable, and extremely fast, and can be applied to highly complex two and three dimensional surface topography evolutions, including sensitive flux/visibility integration laws, simultaneous etching and deposition, effects of non-convex sputter laws demonstrating faceting, as well as ion-sputtered re-deposition and re-emission with low sticking coefficients, and surface diffusion. In this paper, we will focus on efficient algorithms for some of the most complex problems, and discuss the computational requirements and performance of these techniques.