Line width r oughness ( LWR) co ntrol is a cr itical issu e in ex treme ultraviolet lit hography ( EUVL). The difficulty o f co ntrolling L WR an d th e n eed to m inimize it h ave g rown as th e sen sitivity o f materials an d resolution in the resist patterning process has improved. An other critical feature that has become difficult to control in EUVL and 22nm half-pitch systems is pattern collapse. The increase of aspect ratio that comes from further s caling pro motes th e onset of pattern collaps e. B oth pattern collaps e an d LWR are eas ily obs erved in EUVL and leading-edge ArF immersion lithography. This p aper w ill d emonstrate recen t g ains in LWR co ntrol in lead ing EUV fil ms u sing track -based p rocesses, etch-based i mprovements, and th e results o f co mbined tec hniques. Also the use of a newly developed EUVspecific F IRM™ ri nse c hemistry t o redu ce pat tern col lapse will be di scussed al ong with fu ture dev elopment activities and industry requirements for both LWR and pattern collapse.
With the projected rollout of pre-production extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) scanners in 2010, EUVL pilot line production will become a reality in wafer fabrication companies. Among EUVL infrastructure items that must be ready, EUV mask carriers remain critical. To keep non-pellicle EUV masks free from particle contamination, an EUV pod concept has been extensively studied. Early prototypes demonstrated nearly particle-free results at a 53 nm PSL equivalent inspection sensitivity during EUVL mask robotic handling, shipment, vacuum pump-purge, and storage. After the passage of SEMI E152, which specifies the EUV pod mechanical interfaces, standards-compliant EUV pod prototypes, including a production version inner pod and prototype outer pod, were built and tested. Their particle protection capability results are reported in this paper. A state-of-the-art blank defect inspection tool was used to quantify their defect protection capability during mask robotic handling, shipment, and storage tests. To ensure the availability of an EUV pod for 2010 pilot production, the progress and preliminary test results of pre-production EUV outer pods are reported as well.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.