Overview of Opportunities for Plasma Science and Engineering in Microelectronics Fabrication

In this talk, I provide an overview of the recent US Department of Energy Basic Research Needs (BRN) Report entitled "Plasma Science for Microelectronics Nanofabrication." I begin this overview with a summary of recent US legislative initiatives (e.g., the CHIPS Act) that promise to significantly increase funding for research in topics related to advancing the semiconductor (considered broadly) industry. Plasma science and engineering is obviously an important part of the industry since more than 40% of individual process steps in manufacturing integrated circuits involve plasma in one way or another. I will provide a brief overview of plasma processing in the industry before turning to an overview of the topics that are highlighted in the report and that will be the topics of the subsequent presentations in the workshop. Finally, I will discuss the challenges associated with effectively coupling the plasma science and engineering community research in this field with efforts from related communities such as the device and material science communities.