Thegeometryofaninductivelycoupledplasma(ICP)etcherisusuallyconsideredtobeanimportantfactorfordeterminingbothplasmaandprocessuniformityoveralargewafer.Duringthepastfewdecades,theseparametersweredeterminedbythe'trialanderror'method,resultinginwastesoftimeandfunds.Inthispaper,anewapproachofregressionorthogonaldesignwithplasmasimulationexperimentsisproposedtoinvestigatethesensitivityofthestructuralparametersontheuniformityofplasmacharacteristics.ThetoolforsimulatingplasmaisCFD-ACE+,whichiscommercialmulti-physicalmodelingsoftwarethathasbeenproventobeaccurateforplasmasimulation.Thesimulatedexperimentalresultsareanalyzedtogetaregressionequationonthreestructuralparameters.Throughthisequation,engineerscancomputetheuni-formityoftheelectronnumberdensityrapidlywithoutmodelingbyCFD-ACE+.Anoptimizationperformedattheendproducesgoodresults.
