Extreme ultra-violet (EUV) lithography has been planned for high-volume manufacturing (HVM) in 2014 for critical layers of advanced nodes in the semiconductor industry. Process and proximity correction (PPC) and verification is necessary in order to compensate various optical and other process effects in EUV lithography. Since the long-range flare, mask shadowing effect, and lens characteristics all vary throughout the whole mask range, position dependent PPC and verification may be needed for accurate mask pattern synthesis. In this paper, we will study the PPC accuracy. The PPC flow uses a single PPC kernel set and a full-mask flare map for long-range flare correction. The lithography model is calibrated in accordance with this PPC flow. The lithography model is used to perform full-mask correction for the 10nm node test chip mask for BEOL/FEOL short loop flow development. The optimized full-mask patterns were placed on the mask and printed using a 0.25 NA EUV scanner at various focus and dose conditions. Printed wafers were measured by a CD-SEM and compared to post-PPC verification results.

Date Published: 1 April 2013
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 8679, Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) Lithography IV, 86790X (1 April 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2011666

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8679:
Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) Lithography IV
Patrick P. Naulleau, Editor(s)