The SEMATECH Berkeley MET: demonstration of 15-nm half-pitch in chemically amplified EUV resist and sensitivity of EUV resists at 6.x-nm
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36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
Engineering topics
Baclea-an, Lorie Mae
Publications and source records attributed to Baclea-an, Lorie Mae.
The SEMATECH Berkeley MET: extending EUV learning to 16-nm half pitch
Several high-performing resists identified in the past two years have been exposed at the 0.3-numerical-aperture (NA) SEMATECH Berkeley Microfield Exposure Tool (BMET) with an engineered dipole illumination optimized for 18-nm half pitch. Five chemically amplified platforms were found to support 20-nm dense patterning at a film thickness of approximately 45 nm. At 19-nm half pitch, however, scattered bridging kept all of these resists from cleanly resolving larger areas of dense features. At 18-nm half pitch, none of the resists were are able to cleanly resolve a single line within a bulk pattern. With this same illumination a directly imageable metal oxide hardmask showed excellent performance from 22-nm half pitch to 17-nm half pitch, and good performance at 16-nm half pitch, closely following the predicted aerial image contrast. This indicates that observed limitations of the chemically amplified resists are indeed coming from the resist and not from a shortcoming of the exposure tool. The imageable hardmask was also exposed using a Pseudo Phase-Shift-Mask technique and achieved clean printing of 15-nm half pitch lines and modulation all the way down to the theoretical 12.5-nm resolution limit of the 0.3-NA SEMATECH BMET.
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
22X mask cleaning effects on EUV lithography process and lifetime
For this paper, we evaluated the impact of repetitive cleans on a photomask that was fabricated and patterned for extreme ultraviolet lithography exposure. The lithographic performance of the cleaned mask, in terms of process window and line edge roughness, was monitored with the SEMATECH Berkeley micro-exposure tool (MET). Each process measurement of the cleaned mask was compared to a reference mask with the same mask architecture. Both masks were imaged on the same day in order to eliminate any process-related measurement uncertainties. The cleaned mask was periodically monitored with atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements and pattern widths were monitored using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). In addition, reflectivity changes were also tracked with the aid of witness plate measurements. At the conclusion of this study, the mask under evaluation was cleaned 22 times; with none of the evaluation techniques showing any significant degradation in performance.
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
EUV mask surface cleaning effects on lithography process performance
The reflective, multilayer based, mask architectures for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography are highly susceptible to surface oxidation and contamination. As a result, EUV masks are expected to undergo cleaning processes in order to maintain the lifetimes necessary for high volume manufacturing. For this study, the impact of repetitive cleaning of EUV masks on imaging performance was evaluated. Two, high quality industry standard, EUV masks are used for this study with one of the masks undergoing repeated cleaning and the other one kept as a reference. Lithographic performance, in terms of process window analysis and line edge roughness, was monitored after every two cleans and compared to the reference mask performance. After 8x clean, minimal degradation is observed. The cleaning cycles will be continued until significant loss imaging fidelity is found.
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗