A dive into clear water: immersion defect capabilities

Streefkerk, Bob; Mulkens, Jan; Moerman, R.; Stavenga, Marco; Hoeven, J van der; Grouwstra, Cedric; Bruls, Richard; Leenders, Martijn; Wang, S.; Dommelen, Youri van; Boerema, M.; Jansen, Henri; Cummings, K. D.; Riepen, M.; Boom, H.B.K.; Suddendorf, M. B.; Huisman, Peter

doi:10.1117/12.660376

Cited by 8 publications

(16 citation statements)

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“…For the film this is the film thickness, whilst that for the droplet is the initial droplet radius. Typical film thicknesses in semiconductor photolithography are in the order of 100 nm and initial droplet sizes are in the range of tens to hundreds of micrometres 17,26,27 , so the timescales differ by four to six orders of magnitude, and our assumption is reasonable.…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 91%

Compound redistribution due to droplet evaporation on a thin polymeric film: Theory

Heijden

Darhuber

Schoot

2019

Journal of Applied Physics

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A thin polymeric film in contact with a fluid body may leach low-molecular-weight compounds into the fluid. If this fluid is a small droplet, the compound concentration within the liquid increases due to ongoing leaching in combination with the evaporation of the droplet. This may eventually lead to an inversion of the transport process and a redistribution of the compounds within the thin film. In order to gain an understanding of the compound redistribution, we apply a macroscopic model for the evaporation of a droplet and combine that with a diffusion model for the compound transport. In the model, material deposition and the resulting contact line pinning are associated with the precipitation of a fraction of the dissolved material. We find three power law regimes for the size of the deposit area as a function of the initial droplet size, dictated by the competition between evaporation, diffusion and the initial compound concentrations in the droplet and the thin film. The strength of the contact line pinning determines the deposition profile of the precipitate, characterised by a pronounced edge and a linearly decaying profile towards the centre of the stain. Our predictions for the concentration profile within the solid substrate resemble patterns found experimentally.The following article will be submitted to Journal of Applied Physics. After it is published, it will be found at https://aip.scitation.org/journal/jap.

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Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 91%

Compound redistribution due to droplet evaporation on a thin polymeric film: Theory

Heijden

Darhuber

Schoot

2019

Journal of Applied Physics

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“…But the recent publication by ASML [16] demonstrated that the bottom lens element could not be contaminated by leaching. Meanwhile, some recent resists developed for immersion lithography have already met the current leaching specifications.…”

Section: Influence Of Pre-and Post-exposure Rinsing On Defectivitymentioning

confidence: 95%

Top coat or no top coat for immersion lithography?

et al. 2006

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Since the moment immersion lithography appeared in the roadmaps of IC manufacturers, the question whether to use top coats has become one of the important topics for discussions.The top coats used in immersion lithography have proved to serve as good protectors from leaching of the resist components (PAGs, bases) into the water. However their application complicates the process and may lead to two side effects. First, top coats can affect the process window and resist profile depending on the material's refractive index, thickness, acidity, chemical interaction with the resist and the soaking time. Second, the top coat application may increase the total amount of defects on the wafer.Having an immersion resist which could work without the top coat would be a preferable solution. Still, it is quite challenging to make such a resist as direct water/resist interaction may also result in process window changes, CD variations, generation of additional defects.We have performed a systematic evaluation of a large number of immersion resist and top coat combinations, using the ASML XT:1250Di scanner at IMEC. The samples for the experiments were provided by all the leading resist and top coat suppliers. Particular attention was paid to how the resist and top coat materials from different vendors interacted with each other. Among the factors which could influence the total amount of defects or CD variations on the wafer were: the material's dynamic contact angle and its interaction with the scanner stage speed, top coat thickness and intermixing layer formation, water uptake and leaching. We have examined the importance of all mentioned factors, using such analytical techniques as Resist Development Analyser (RDA), Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM), Mass Spectroscopy (MS) and scatterometry. We have also evaluated the influence of the pre-and pos-exposure rinse processes on the defectivity.In this paper we will present the data on imaging and defectivity performance of the resists with and without the use of top coats. So far we can conclude that top coat/resist approach used in immersion lithography needs some more improvements (i.e. process, materials properties) in order to be implemented in high volume manufacturing.

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“…We will start with Overlay performance in 3.1 and give an in-depth review of the 1.2NA imaging performance in 3.2. Regarding immersion defectivity we refer to Ref [6].…”

Section: System Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

Immersion lithography with an ultrahigh-NA in-line catadioptric lens and a high-transmission flexible polarization illumination system

et al. 2006

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A second phase in the immersion era is starting with the introduction of ultra high NA (NA >1) systems. These systems are targeting for 45 nm node device production and beyond. ASML TWINSCAN XT:1700i features a maximum NA of 1.2 and a 26x33 mm 2 scanner field size. The projection lens is an in-line catadioptric lens design and the AERIAL XP illumination system enables conventional an off-axis illumination pupil shapes in either polarized or un-polarized modes at maximum light efficiency. In this paper a description and a performance overview of the TWINSCAN XT:1700i is given. We will present and discuss lithographic performance results, with special attention at low-k1 imaging using high NA and polarized illumination. Overlay, focus and productivity performance will also be presented.

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A dive into clear water: immersion defect capabilities

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Compound redistribution due to droplet evaporation on a thin polymeric film: Theory

Compound redistribution due to droplet evaporation on a thin polymeric film: Theory

Top coat or no top coat for immersion lithography?

Immersion lithography with an ultrahigh-NA in-line catadioptric lens and a high-transmission flexible polarization illumination system

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