Nikon has been developing the Digital Scanner (DS), an optical maskless exposure tool with a DUV light source and a micromirror-type spatial light modulator (SLM). Rasterized digital data, essentially huge bitmap files, are used to drive the SLM. The DS enables new applications such as large area printing and chip customization because its digital pattern data are easily modified. Flexible and fast data preparation software was developed for the new applications. As a standard operation of DS data preparation software, a CAD file (GDS or OASIS) is converted into bitmap files. In addition, bitmap file generation by a scripting language is available without a CAD file. This is useful when the CAD file includes a lot of polygons in which each polygon is similar but not identical, resulting in a huge file. As an example of application, a metasurface consists of sub-wavelength periodic patterns with various shapes, which are arranged to achieve the desired optical effect. The shape of each pattern at a grid point can be determined by a computer program, i.e., a pattern generator script. On the other hand, data preparation time can be shortened for periodic pattern which is often seen in semiconductor circuits. We report those data preparation methods for the DS, which have been used for our recent exposure experiments.

The first planned Digital Scanner product, DS248, will have the optical resolution of 110 nm and overlay accuracy of less than 10 nm, the same level as a KrF mask scanner. In addition, DS248 has more application areas, such as individual chip customization and large-area printing up to wafer size, with KrF resolution, which are not possible with the current mask scanner but will be beneficial for performance enhancement of semiconductor devices in future. The latest exposure results of DS-POC, which has the similar imaging performance with DS248, are introduced including chip ID exposure on entire 200 mm wafer and exposure of wafer scale integration substrate. Simulation data of high aspect ratio patterning with high resolution by means of integration of multiple heads of solid-state laser is described. Development progress of DS’s pixel mask conversion software that directly generates pixel mask from target pattern with OPC is reported.