Development of the point diffraction interferometer for extreme ultraviolet lithography: Design, fabrication, and evaluation J.Masks have been identified as the high risk, high cost issue for extreme ultraviolet ͑EUV͒ lithography. Challenges in EUV mask technology such as providing a pellicle and correcting defects have prompted the search for a maskless technique. Here we describe two approaches in which the mask of a current EUV system is replaced by an array of micron-sized mirrors. Patterns are achieved by modulating individual mirrors to create selected bright and dark spots. In one approach, individual mirrors can be lowered by /4 to yield locally dark regions because of destructive interference. In another approach, each mirror is mounted on a cantilever. Selected cantilevers can be tilted such that incident light from those mirrors is out of the pupil of the imaging objective. The wafer is mechanically scanned and the object is electronically scrolled across the array of mirrors in order to build up the required pattern. We have simulated the mechanical properties of the micron-sized mirrors and some aerial images showing that sub-100 nm features appear feasible.

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A micromirror array for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) maskless lithography was designed and fabricated. The arrays are composed of devices with less than a 350 nm actuation gap and a surface area ranging from 1 μm2 to 20 μm2. The mirror layer is composed of silicon in lieu of the Mo/Si stack used for EUV mirrors in order to debug the process and to simplify the initial fabrication. Germanium was used as a sacrificial material while α-Si acts as a hinge for this parallel-plate design. Silicon migration into germanium was observed, so the thermal budget was restrained to 450 °C for the entire process. Scanning electron microscope images of working devices are provided.

The authors present the results of a full-field extreme ultraviolet (EUV) pellicle for reticle protection and defect mitigation. Based on novel microelectromechanical systems based fabrication, it comprises a 50 nm Si membrane attached to a wire-grid. Two types of pellicle fabrication techniques are described. The authors present the first actinic results of extreme ultraviolet lithography reticle with pellicle exposed on IMEC Advanced Demo Tool. The impact of different pellicle types on imaging is evaluated as a function of pellicle standoff distance and mesh geometry. A new prototype pellicle has been developed with a measured transmission of 82% in EUV. Actinic exposures are complemented with aerial image modeling, thermal analysis, vacuum cycling, resist outgas tests, and >5 g repeated scan cycle robustness tests.