Ralf Otto

Current state of 300-mm lithography in a pilot line environment

SEMICONDUCTOR300 (SC300) is the first pilot manufacturing facility for 300 mm wafers in the world. This company, a joint venture between Infineon Technologies and Motorola, is working on developing a 300 mm manufacturing tool set. The pilot line contains a full compliment of tools for 0.24 micrometer ground rule 64 M DRAM manufacturing. The 64 M DRAM was chosen for the ability to easily benchmark against 200 mm 64 M DRAM manufacturing data from the sister factory. Currently, testing on structures with less than 0.20 micrometer ground rules is occurring the pilot line. In this paper we present the performance of the initial lithography tool set installed at SC300. Several lots of wafers with measurable yield have been produced. These lots have produced data on overlay, critical dimensions, and run-to-run, wafer-to-wafer and within-wafer performance of the various lithography layers. We now have preliminary data on the comparison of 200 mm tools to 300 mm tools in terms of footprint, throughput, reliability, and productivity gains for equivalent square centimeters of silicon. With this data we can start to predict what performance we should expect from 300 mm manufacturing lithography tools.

Process performance comparisons on 300-mm i-line steppers, DUV stepper, and DUV scanners

SEMICONDUCTOR300 was the first pilot production facility for 300mm wafers in the world. This company, a joint venture between Infineon Technologies and Motorola, is working to develop a manufacturable 300mm wafer tool set. The lithography tools include I-line steppers, a DUV stepper, and two DUV scanners. These tools are used to build 64M DRAM devices and aggressive test vehicles. Data will be presented on the mix-and-matching performance between DUV scanners and I-line steppers. Process-related data on CD within-field and across wafer sampling for selected tool types were investigated. The process capability of the current tool set for 0.25 micrometers and 0.18 micrometers devices were compared. Resolution performance of the scanner with its 0.68 numerical aperture was studied. Dense and isolated printed pattern performance was measured with in-line metrology. 300mm wafers are sensitive to backside defectivity, and therefore the wafer chuck design plays an important role in achieving the desired pattern transfer performance. The performance of the different chuck types and their sensitivity to incoming backside wafer contamination levels was studied. Rework data was used to assist in characterizing the exposure dose matching and chuck type performance.

Effect of nonlinear errors on 300-mm wafer overlay performance

SEMICONDUCTOR3000 was the first pilot production facility for 300nm wafers in the world. This company, a joint venture between Infineon Technologies and Motorola, is working to develop a manufacturable 300mm wafer tool set. The lithography tools include I-line stepper, and two DUV scanners. These tools are used to build both 64M DRAM devices and aggressive test vehicles. This paper shows the influence of non-linear errors on 300nm wafers is much stronger than on 200mm wafers. The team determined the root causes for the stronger appearance of these effects and proposed solutions to improve the overlay performance.