Hoyeon Kim

32 nm imprint masks using variable shape beam pattern generators

Imprint lithography has been included on the ITRS Lithography Roadmap at the 32, 22 and 16 nm nodes. Step and Flash Imprint Lithography (S-FIL ®) is a unique method that has been designed from the beginning to enable precise overlay for creating multilevel devices. A photocurable low viscosity monomer is dispensed dropwise to meet the pattern density requirements of the device, thus enabling imprint patterning with a uniform residual layer across a field and across entire wafers. Further, S-FIL provides sub-100 nm feature resolution without the significant expense of multi-element, high quality projection optics or advanced illumination sources. However, since the technology is 1X, it is critical to address the infrastructure associated with the fabrication of templates. For sub-32 nm device manufacturing, one of the major technical challenges remains the fabrication of full-field 1x templates with commercially viable write times. Recent progress in the writing of sub-40 nm patterns using commercial variable shape e-beam tools and non-chemically amplified resists has demonstrated a very promising route to realizing these objectives, and in doing so, has considerably strengthened imprint lithography as a competitive manufacturing technology for the sub 32nm node. Here we report the first imprinting results from sub-40 nm full-field patterns, using Samsungs current flash memory production device design. The fabrication of the template is discussed and the resulting critical dimension control and uniformity are discussed, along with image placement results. The imprinting results are described in terms of CD uniformity, etch results, and overlay.

Full-field imprinting of sub-40 nm patterns

Imprint lithography has been included on the ITRS Lithography Roadmap at the 32, 22 and 16 nm nodes. Step and Flash Imprint Lithography (S-FIL (R)) is a unique patterning method that has been designed from the beginning to enable precise overlay to enable multilevel device fabrication. A photocurable low viscosity resist is dispensed dropwise to match the pattern density requirements of the device, thus enabling patterning with a uniform residual layer thickness across a field and across multiple wafers. Further, S-FIL provides sub-50 nm feature resolution without the significant expense of multi-element projection optics or advanced illumination sources. However, since the technology is 1X, it is critical to address the infrastructure associated with the fabrication of imprint masks (templates). For sub-32 nm device manufacturing, one of the major technical challenges remains the fabrication of full-field 1x imprint masks with commercially viable write times. Recent progress in the writing of sub-40 nm patterns using commercial variable shape e-beam tools and non-chemically amplified resists has demonstrated a very promising route to realizing these objectives, and in doing so, has considerably strengthened imprint lithography as a competitive manufacturing technology for the sub-32nm node. Here we report the first imprinting results from sub-40 nm full-field patterns, using Samsungs current flash memory production device design. The fabrication of the imprint mask and the resulting critical dimension control and uniformity are discussed, along with image placement results. The imprinting results are described in terms of CD uniformity, etch results, and overlay.

Progress in EUV lithography toward manufacturing

In this article the recent progress in the elements of EUV lithography is presented. Source power around 205W was demonstrated and further scaling up is going on, which is expected to be implemented in the field within 2017. Source availability keeps improving especially due to the introduction of new droplet generator but collector lifetime needs to be verified at each power level. Mask blank defect satisfied the HVM goal. Resist meets the requirements of development purposes and dose needs to be reduced further to satisfy the productivity demand. Pellicle, where both the high transmittance and long lifetime are demanded, needs improvements especially in pellicle membrane. Potential issues in high-NA EUV are discussed including resist, small DOF, stitching, mask infrastructure, whose solutions need to be prepared timely in addition to high-NA exposure tool to enable this technology.

Revisit to aberration: a simulation study of lens aberration induced overlay misalignment and its experimental validation

Overlay (O/L) misalignment (M/A) is induced from numerous sources including metrology error and stage control error, and aberration in projection optics. However, as design rule become smaller, aberration induced O/L M/A is evaluated to take considerable portion in the overlay budget. This paper focuses on O/L M/A issues from projection optics. We presents a simulation analysis of M/A between contact hole (C/H) pattern and line & space (L/S) pattern at 65nm node based on the aberration data from actual lithography tool to single out the main source of O/L M/A.. The study shows that the aberration in projection optics can induce considerable M/A and the conventional overlay keys do not represent this M/A properly. Among the Zernike fringe polynomials, the third-order behavior (D3) in Z2 (tilt) is found to be the critical source of misalignment. This portion of the aberration is resulted from the lens heating (LH) and can be corrected. However, this correction method needs improvements because its controllability over LH is not enough for the complete correction of LH induced M/A. Besides D3, Z10 (3-Foil) are found to be the major sources for pattern shift in C/H patterns, and Z7 and Z14 (Coma x) are found for L/S patterns.

Reduction of SEM noise and extended application to prediction of CD uniformity and its experimental validation

As the design rule of Integrated Circuits(IC) becomes smaller, the precise measurement of Critical Dimension (CD) of features and minimization of deviation in CD measured becomes a vital issue. In this paper, a simple frequency analysis method to extract the noise from SEM images was used to evaluate the contribution of SEM noise in CD Uniformity. Multiple SEM images of simple Line and Space (L/S) patterns were analyzed and a model of frequency profile (Power Spectrum Density (PSD) model) was made using an offline analyzing tool based on Matlab®. From this profile, white noise and 1/f profile were separated. Noises are eliminated to generate a noise reduced PSD profile to make CD results. The contribution of white noise on CD measurement can be assessed using Line Width Roughness (LWR) measurement. Furthermore, CD uniformity can be also predicted from the model. This prediction is based on an assumption that CD uniformity is equal to LWR if the inspection area is extended to infinity and appropriate sampling method is applied. The results showed that the contribution of white noise on LWR can be up to around 70% (in power) without any noise reduction measures (sum line averaging) after imaging in photo resist image. For experimental validation, CD uniformity is predicted from the model for different measurement conditions and compared with real measurement. For a result, CD uniformity prediction (3sigma) from the model shows within 20% in accuracy with real CD uniformity value measured from the photo resist image.