ED12S003

Elementary analysis of potentials and fields between contacts on a Simple Silicon substrate (August 2012)
Ragothaman R, ED12S003, Dept of Engineering Design, IIT Madras

AbstractThe Electric field and the voltage distributions inside a simple silicon substrate is calculated by solving the Laplace equation of the voltage potential using Finite Difference method. The field distributions on various alignments of the metal contact are simulated and studied Index Termselectric field, Finite difference method, Laplace, metal contact, silicon substrate, voltage potential

Different Alignments of the metal contact A. The field inside the silicon substrate The simplest case is to consider the field inside the substrate alone unmindful of the environment around it. The case is modeled using a simple parallel plate capacitor arrangement. The voltage values at all points inside the grid are calcualted using the finite difference equation. For the voltage values, at the end of the matrix, suitable boundary conditions need to be applied. The two most commonly used boundary conditions are the Dirichlet and the Neumann conditions. The Dirichlet conditions assumes a constant value at the boundary, usually 0 volts. It is used in situations when the boundary extends over a large area and we assume that the voltage at the end tends to zero volts since the distance is large. The Neumann condition however assumes that the change along the boundary is zero. For our case, the Neumann condition would give better result since the area of the capacitor is confined to a small region. A region of 20*20 was taken. Neumann conditions were applied and the voltage was calculated until a tolerance of 0.01 was achieved. The figure of the voltage distribution and the electric field distribution are shown as follows.

I. INTRODUCTION
HE objective is to study the voltage and electric field distribution inside a silicon substrate when the it is operating. Usually metal contacts are provided at the top of the silicon substrate. The arrangement is analogous to a parallel plate capacitor arrangement where the voltage is applied on a metal plate and a dielectric substrate is filled between the metal and the ground. As such, the voltage distribution inside the silicon can be modeled as a parallel plate capacitor arrangement.

II. THEORY The governing equation for the voltage distribution is the Laplace equation. In our case the arrangement is considered as a two dimensional one with x and y co-ordinates. In order to numerically solve the Laplace equation, the equation is converted into a Finite difference form. The Finite difference form calculates the value of the voltage from the knowledge of the four neighbouring points around it. Numerically, it can be solved as follows. A two dimensional matrix is taken and the voltage values are initialized to zero. The voltage at point(i,j) is calculated using the formula given below. The process however is repeated until the values converge to a desired degree of tolerance. The electric field is then calculated as a gradient of the voltage distribution obtained. V_curr(i,j) = ((1/4)*(V_prev(i-1,j) + V_prev(i+1,j) + V_prev(i,j-1) + V_prev(i,j+1))) ;

Figure 1: Voltage distribution

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Figure 2 : Electric field distribution

Figure 4 : Electric field distribution (A close up view)

The voltage distribution is seen as a linear plot along the direction of the plate thickness. Since the potential distribution is linear, the electric field distribution must be a constant. The electric field values tend to converge to a single value as the iteration is increased. B. Distribution in the air surrounding the substrate The next case is to calculate the voltage distribution in the air that is surrounding the silicon substrate. The fundamental Laplace equation still holds inside the capacitor. However at the boundary, the equations are slightly modified to take into account the effect of change in permittivity along the airsilicon interface. The voltage at the interface on all four sides is calculated based on the formula given below. V_curr(i,j) = (2/(e_a + e_s))*((1/4)*(e_s*V_prev(i,j-1) + e_a*V_prev(i,j+1) + ((e_a+e_s)/2)*V_prev(i-1,j) + ((e_a+e_s)/2)*V_prev(i+1,j))) ; The outermost boundary calculation once again requires the use of boundary conditions. In this case, since the air extends to a large distance around the silicon, the Dirichlet conditons are applied setting the outermost grid points to zero volts. The voltage and the electric field distributions are shown as follows.

It is seen that the voltage distribution extends on the sides of the capacitor. The fields spread out and culminate at the lower plate of the capacitor. This field is referred to as the fringing fields. Also, it is to be noted that the field also extends on the top into the air. The distribution however is different from that inside a capacitor since the permittivities of air and silicon are different. Field extends more into the silicon. C. Distribution for a smaller localised metal contact The metal contact on top cannot be placed on the entire stretch of the substrate. It is usually placed in a much smaller region. The scenario is similar to the previous case except that the value of the voltage at the interface must be calculated for two layers namely the metal layer and the layer immediately above it. The voltage and the field distributions are plotted as given below.

Figure 5 : Voltage distribution

Figure 3 : Voltage distribution

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Figure 6 : Electric field (A close up view)

Figure 8 : Electric field distribution (A close up view)

It is seen that the metal contact on the silicon exhibits a pattern much like that of the field given by a point source since the metal contact is very small when compared to that of the silicon substrate. Also fringing fields are seen in this case also. However if the position of the metal contact is moved to the centre of the silicon, the strength of the fringing field can be reduced greatly. D. Distribution of a metal contact and a ground contact arrangement The ground contact is also made on the top of the silicon substrate. The voltage distribution in this case can be analyzed using the previous case with the difference that the ground contact is taken into account for calculating the field. The voltage and the electric field distribution are as follows.

It is clear from the Figure 5 and the Figure 7 that the inclusions of the ground contact on the top of the wafer confines the voltage distribution till the ground plate. The voltage field does not extend beyond the ground plate in the right-side direction. Also the field inside the capacitor also dies down quickly because of the influence of the ground contact. The electric field of Figure 8 shows the picture more clearly. E. Insulated Ground In this case, the ground is kept at zero volts but rather it is insulated. Let us assume that the insulator used for packaging has the same permittivity as that of the silicon. This case can be modelled by formulating the boundary conditions at the bottom of the silicon. Like the previous examples, the dirichlet condition is applied for the air boundary that is extending to several metres.

Figure 7: Voltage distribution

Figure 9 : Voltage distribution

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Optoelectronics Conference, 2003. IMOC 2003. Proceedings of the 2003 SBMO/IEEE MTT-S International, 2:1037 1041 vol.2, 2003.

Ragothaman. R (M2010) received his under-graduate in the field of Electronics and Communications from the Pondicherry University. The Author has two years industrial expertise in writing codes for a RTOS processor. Presently, the author is pursuing his MS degree in the Department of Engineering Design, under the guidance of Dr. Kavitha Arunachalam

Figure 10 : Electric field Distribution

The voltage distribution clearly shows that when compared to a metal backing, an insulated backing allows fields to extend outside the silicon substrate considerably. Although the ground contact nearer to the metal contact restricts field to cross the boundary in the top right region, a considerable amount of field is seen in the left side and the bottom side.

III. CONCLUSION From the simulations, the following points can be inferred. The field of the substrate extends into the surrounding air as a fringing field. The strength of the field is reduced if a smaller metal contact is positioned at the centre of the wafer. A ground contact nearer to the metal contact helps to confine the field(majority of the field) to the region between them. An insulated field allows the field to be extended into the insultor as compared to a metal contact which does not allow electric field to be excited within it. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author likes to thank Prof. Ananth.K for providing the assignment problem and kindling interest in the author to solve them. The author also likes to thank Mr. Pankaj for his advice on the expected outputs and the MATLAB commands. REFERENCES
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