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Abstract. A contact hole shrink process using directed self-assembly lithography (DSAL) for sub-30 nm contact hole patterning is reported on. DSAL using graphoepitaxy and poly (styrene-block-methyl methacrylate) (PS-b-PMMA) a block copolymer (BCP) was demonstrated and characteristics of our process are spin-on-carbon prepattern and wet development. Feasibility of DSAL for semiconductor device manufacturing was investigated in terms of DSAL process window. Wet development process was optimized first; then critical dimension (CD) tolerance of prepattern was evaluated from three different aspects, which are DSA hole CD, contact edge roughness (CER), and hole open yield. Within 70 þ ∕ − 5 nm hole prepattern CD, 99.3% hole open yield was obtained and CD tolerance was 10 nm. Matching between polymer size and prepattern size is critical, because thick PS residual layer appears at the hole bottom when the prepattern holes are too small or too large and results in missing holes after pattern transfer. We verified the DSAL process on a 300-mm wafer at target prepattern CD and succeeded in patterning sub-30 nm holes on center, middle, and edge of wafer. Average prepattern CD of 72 nm could be shrunk uniformly to DSA hole pattern of 28.5 nm. By the DSAL process, CD uniformity was greatly improved from 7.6 to 1.4 nm, and CER was also improved from 3.9 to 0.73 nm. Those values represent typical DSAL rectification characteristics and are significant for semiconductor manufacturing. It is clearly demonstrated that the contact hole shrink using DSAL is a promising patterning method for next-generation lithography.

Thin Hf0.6Si0.4Ox and Hf0.3Al0.7Ox films fabricated by metal-organic chemical-vapor deposition and atomic-layer-deposition techniques were characterized using monoenergetic positron beams. Measurements of the Doppler broadening spectra of annihilation radiation and the lifetime spectra of positions indicated that positrons annihilated from the trapped state by open volumes that exist intrinsically in amorphous structures of the films. For HfSiOx, the mean size of the open volumes and their size distribution decreased with increasing postdeposition annealing (PDA) temperature. For HfAlOx, although the overall behavior of the open volumes in response to annealing was similar to that for HfSiOx, PDA caused a separation of the mean size of the open volumes. When this separation occurred, the value of the line-shape parameter S increased, suggesting an oxygen deficiency in the amorphous matrix. This fragmentation of the amorphous matrix can be suppressed by decreasing the annealing time.

Directed self-assembly (DSA) has the potential to extend scaling for both line/space and hole patterns. DSA has shown the capability for pitch reduction (multiplication), hole shrinks, CD self-healing as well as a pathway towards line edge roughness (LER) and pattern collapse improvement [1][2][3][4]. The current challenges for industry adoption are materials maturity, practical process integration, hardware capability, defect reduction and design integration. Tokyo Electron (TEL) has created close collaborations with customers, consortia and material suppliers to address these challenges with the long term goal of robust manufacturability.This paper provides a wide range of DSA demonstrations to accommodate different device applications. In collaboration with IMEC, directed line/space patterns at 12.5 and 14 nm HP are demonstrated with PS-b-PMMA (poly(styrene-b-methylmethacrylate)) using both chemo and grapho-epitaxy process flows. Pre-pattern exposure latitudes of >25% (max) have been demonstrated with 4X directed self-assembly on 300 mm wafers for both the lift off and etch guide chemo-epitaxy process flows. Within TEL's Technology Development Center (TDC), directed selfassembly processes have been applied to holes for both CD shrink and variation reduction. Using a PS-b-PMMA hole shrink process, negative tone developed pre-pattern holes are reduced to below 30 nm with critical dimension uniformity (CDU) of 0.9 nm (3σ) and contact edge roughness (CER) of 0.8 nm (3σ). To generate higher resolution beyond a PS-b-PMMA system, a high chi (χ) material is used to demonstrate 9 nm HP line/ space post-etch patterns. In this paper, TEL presents process solutions for both line/space and hole DSA process integrations.

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Nanoporous polysiloxane films were fabricated by plasma polymerization of hexamethyldisiloxane mixed with cyclohexane under different conditions. The pores were generated through the elimination of carbonaceous aggregates (porogen) by annealing at 600 degrees C. Results of spectroscopic ellipsometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy suggest that not only film porosity but also average pore size depends on the amount of the decomposable porogen. The pore size was controllable in a range between 0.6 and 1.0 nm in radius by proper selection of the substrate temperature and precursor composition.