Plasma antireflective coating optimization using enhanced reflectivity modeling

Abstract

An improved method is presented for the optimization of plasma deposited bottom inorganic anti-reflective coatings (ARCs). These ARCs have shown the capability to improve photolithography process margins through reduction of substrate reflectivity while meeting integration issues [1]. However, the ability to vary plasma ARC optical properties through deposition conditions has led to increased complexity of film stack optimization. We present simple but effective enhanced modeling methods for reducing the effort required to properly tune plasma ARC optical conditions and optimize complex film stacks incorporating these materials.

Photolithography

“…Corner rounding is the common inability of the reticle write process to reproduce grid together), resizing of particular design features (sizing of the features only), addition of alignment features, and any the sharp edges of features in the design. Severe corner rounding causes line shortening, a length error, typically on calibration structures (23). The calibration structures are used by the metrology to determine the deviation from the narrow rectangular features.…”