Ken-ichiro Shinoda

0.85-NA ArF exposure system and performances

At the time when the 90nm node is near at head, the era for ArF exposure tool is expected in the near future. In this paper, the extension possibility to over the 65 nm node with the FPA-6000AS4, which equips a lens with 0.85 of the numerical aperture (NA) and some indispensable functions with the future lithography for extending the patterning capabilities down to 65nm node and beyond it, is discussed. In the development of the 0.85NA exposure system, we would like to introduce the three major topics. Firstly, the exposure tool equips an illuminator providing flexibly variable illumination modes. Secondly, we newly developed a metrology for determining the aberrations on the exposure tool in order to achieve extremely low aberrations, with the method applying Haltman. And lastly, exposure performances, and the flare, are discussed.