Dramatic advances are being made in dry processing technologies. Atomic scale precision below 10 nm is now possible with fine patterning technologies for high-volume manufacturing of semiconductor devices. The isotropic and anisotropic nature of both film deposition and etching is versatile for nanoscale fabrication of three-dimensional features, such as high-aspect-ratio (HAR) features. Here we conduct a systematic review of the literature over the last 40 years to evaluate the history and progress of dry processes with regard to fine pattern transfer, HAR feature formation, and multiple patterning as lithographic techniques. Finally, we address the major challenges shared across the plasma science and technology community.
Extreme ultraviolet interference lithography was carried out at the long undulator beamline in NewSUBARU. It was confirmed that the spatial coherence length is 1.1 mm using a 10-µm-wide slit in the Young's double slit experiment. A 25-nm half pitch (hp) resist pattern was successfully replicated by extreme ultraviolet interference lithography (EUV-IL) utilizing a two-window transmission grating pattern of a 50-nm line and space (L/S). For the replication of a 20-nm L/S resist pattern by EUV-IL, we contrived a fabrication process that is suitable for a transmission grating pattern of 40-nm L/S and smaller. Employing a hard-mask process with a silicon dioxide (SiO2) layer on a tantalum–nitride (TaN) layer in the fabrication of a two-window transmission grating, we successfully achieved five times larger dry-etch selectivity in comparison with a non-hard-mask process. As a result, we confirmed the ability to apply this process to a 40-nm hp grating.
The extreme ultraviolet microscope (EUVM) has been developed for an actinic mask inspection of a EUV finished mask and a EUV blank mask. Using this microscope, amplitude defects on a finished mask and phase defects on a glass substrate are observed. However, it has a problem of low contrast, which originates from 1) thermal noise of a charge coupled device (CCD) camera, 2) wave aberrations of an optical component, and 3) a nonuniform illumination intensity. To resolve these issues, EUVM was improved. 1) To reduce a thermal noise, a cooled CCD camera is installed. 2) To remove wave aberrations of a back-end turning mirror, a Mo/Si multiplayer-coated thick glass substrate with a high surface accuracy is employed instead of a Si wafer substrate. Furthermore, in situ alignment was carried out to remove wavefront aberrations for a Schwarzschild imaging optics. In addition, 3) by installing a scanning system on the front-end turning mirror, a highly uniform illumination intensity was achieved. As a result, images of less than 100 nm without astigmatism were obtained.
We constructed an extreme ultraviolet microscopy (EUVM) system for actinic mask inspection that consists of Schwarzschild optics and an X-ray zooming tube. This system was used to inspect completed extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) masks and Mo/Si coated substrates on ultralow expansion (ULE) glass. We also have fabricated programmed phase defects on the blanks used for inspection. The EUVM system was capable of resolving a programmed line-pit defect with a width of 40 nm and a depth of 10 nm and also that with a width of 70 nm and a depth of 2 nm. However, a 75-nm-wide, 1.5-nm-deep pit defect was not resolved. The EUVM system was also capable of resolving programmed hole-pit defects with widths ranging from 35 to 170 nm and depths ranging from 2.2 to 2.5 nm. However, 20-nmwide, 1.5-nm-deep hole-pit defects were not resolved. These results agree with the simulation results perfectly. Thus, in this study, critical dimensions of a pit defects on mask blanks were determined to be a width of 20 nm and a depth of 2 nm.
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