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27 June 2014 Layout optimization method to equalize the best-focus position of different patterns
Jaione Tirapu-Azpiroz, Alan E. Rosenbluth, Timothy A. Brunner
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Journal of Micro/Nanolithography, MEMS, and MOEMS, Vol. 13, Issue 2, 023014 (June 2014). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JMM.13.2.023014
Abstract
In optical lithography for microchip manufacturing, it is important that the focal ranges of all patterns in the layout be closely aligned in order to maximize a common process window. In practice, large pattern-dependent variations in the position of the best focus are observed, which have been traced back to phase errors induced on the image-forming beams by scattering from mask topography. We show that this degradation mechanism can be exploited as a source of corrective phase shift, allowing pattern-dependent focus shifts to be controlled purely by changing the details of the mask layout, without requiring a significant change in the mask-making process. Phase distortions in the imaging beams are corrected by the optimized insertion of orthogonally oriented subresolution jogs into existing edges in the layout, thereby introducing a tailored scatter contribution whose quadrature component has the opposite sign from that of the primary edge.
CC BY: © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.
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Jaione Tirapu-Azpiroz, Alan E. Rosenbluth, and Timothy A. Brunner "Layout optimization method to equalize the best-focus position of different patterns," Journal of Micro/Nanolithography, MEMS, and MOEMS 13(2), 023014 (27 June 2014). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JMM.13.2.023014
Published: 27 June 2014
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Cited by 2 scholarly publications.
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KEYWORDS
Photomasks
Phase shifts
SRAF
Lithography
Semiconducting wafers
Opacity
Binary data
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