Go Ichinose

On-product overlay improvement with an enhanced alignment system

The final lithography accuracy is determined by what is known as the “on-product” performance, which includes product wafer-related errors and long-term stability. It is evident that on-product performance improvement is absolutely imperative now, and will become even more crucial in coming years. In order to meet customers’ future requirements, we have developed the next-generation lithography system focusing on wafer alignment advancements to improve onproduct performance. This newly developed wafer alignment system will help customers achieve their aggressive next-generation manufacturing accuracy and productivity requirements. In this paper, we describe the details of the new wafer measurement system and provide supporting performance data.