There are an increasing number of issues confronting lithography engineers in modern wafer fabs. Of these problems, yield loss due to reticle defects has received less attention as compared to the shrinking process window of advanced lithographic requirements. Wafer fabs also have concentrated primarily on equipment and people as major sources of yield loss. The requirement of increased focus on reticle defects is examined. The constraints of the current manufacturing capability of mask shops is driving the need for a better method to link the actual lithographic manufacturing process to the reticle defect analysis. This paper will propose a method for integrating the reticle inspection and wafer process as a method for advanced reticle disposition and specification generation. By linking the fab wafer process to the reticle defect inspection a more complete picture of the impact of having reticle defects can be assessed.

Date Published: 7 July 1997
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 3051, Optical Microlithography X, (7 July 1997); doi: 10.1117/12.275972

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3051:
Optical Microlithography X
Gene E. Fuller, Editor(s)