Recently, the critical dimension (CD) abnormality due to lens aberrations of exposure tool has become one of the critical issues in production of semiconductor devices. The most remarkable feature of CD abnormality due to lens aberration is asymmetry of symmetric twin pattern. And the asymmetry is only caused by a particular aberration because the influence on CD abnormality of lens aberration depends on the device pattern shape. Therefore, it is important to know the interaction of the device pattern shape with lens aberrations, and to ensure that consideration of the interaction is reflected in the design of device. This paper introduces a pattern design methods robust to lens aberration is based on Zernike Sensitivity (ZS) method. We conclude that our method modifies a pattern sensitive to lens aberration so that it becomes a pattern robust to lens aberration without reduction of the depth of focus (DOF).

Date Published: 28 May 2004
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 5377, Optical Microlithography XVII, (28 May 2004); doi: 10.1117/12.536244

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5377:
Optical Microlithography XVII
Bruce W. Smith, Editor(s)