Deposition behaviors of Ti films on a sharp tip were examined by a computer simulation using two modules: the conventional physical vapor deposition (PVD) and ionized PVD modules in PVD-Pro 3.2. The modeling results of Ti film growth on a sharp tip through the conventional PVD showed that as the process parameters of target substrate distance, Ar gas pressure and input power were changed, the energy of sputtered particles was changed but the film morphology on the sharp tip was hardly controlled. The results for the ionized PVD modeled as a function of the ion-to-neutral flux ratio and incident energy showed that the most influential factor for the film deposition during ionized PVD was ion-to-neutral ratio and the morphology of Ti films on the sharp tip was controllable with increasing the directionality of depositing particles. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.