KLA-Tencor and industry partners are collaborating on a project for developing early capabilities of inspecting NGL masks. The project, partially funded by NIST as part of the ATP program, is focusing on building a research tool that will provide experimental data for development of a production capable tool. Some of the key technical issues include contrast in transmission and reflection, defect sources and types, and maintaining mask cleanliness in the absence of pellicles. The masks need to be inspected at multiple process stages, starting with unpatterned substrates, and ending with the pattern inspection. System issues include defect sensitivity and inspection time, which need to be balanced.

Date Published: 19 July 2000
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 4066, Photomask and Next-Generation Lithography Mask Technology VII, (19 July 2000); doi: 10.1117/12.392104

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4066:
Photomask and Next-Generation Lithography Mask Technology VII
Hiroaki Morimoto, Editor(s)