A new type of real-time optical microscope has been developed that operates on the same principle as a liquid immersion microscope, with the liquid replaced by a solid lens of high refractive index material. Using a lens with an index n=2 and 436 nm illumination, this microscope has resolved 100 nm lines and spaces and has demonstrated a factor of two improvement in the edge response over a confocal microscope.

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TCAD development for lithography resolution enhancement Advances in lithography have contributed significantly to the advancement of the integrated circuit technology. While nonoptical next-generation lithography (NGL) solutions are being developed, optical lithography continues to be the workhorse for high-throughput very-large-scale integrated (VLSI) lithography. Extending optical lithography to the resolution levels necessary to support today's aggressive product road maps increasingly requires the use of resolution-enhancement techniques. This paper presents an overview of several resolution-enhancement techniques being developed and implemented in IBM for its leading-edge CMOS logic and memory products. Resolution enhancement In the simplified approximation of coherent illumination, the resolution R of a lithography system is conventionally

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