State of the art manufacturing of semiconductor devices involves electrodeposition of copper for device wiring. The current Damascene process, pioneered by IBM, depends on the use of electrolyte additives that affect the local deposition rate thereby resulting in superconformal, or bottom–up “superfilling” of trenches and vias. This remarkable growth process is examined in the context of the recently developed curvature enhanced adsorbate coverage (CEAC) mechanism. The model stipulates that 1.) the growth velocity is proportional to the local accelerator, or catalyst, surface coverage and 2.) the catalyst remains segregated at the metal/electrolyte interface during copper deposition. For growth on non-planar geometries this leads to enrichment of the catalyst on advancing concave surfaces and dilution on advancing convex sections; thereby giving rise to bottom-up superfilling of sub-micrometer trenches and vias. The mechanism is applicable to any growth process that is mediated by an interfacial chemical reaction such as electrodeposition, electroless deposition or chemical vapor deposition. The talk will focus on the quantitative application of the CEAC mechanism to connect kinetic measurements performed on planar surfaces with 3-D shape evolution during feature filling. This protocol has been applied to a variety of chemically distinct systems although the talk will focus on its utility for understanding and optimizing the copper Damascene process that is used in the fabrication of microelectronic devices.