Benchmarking of advanced CD-SEMs at the 130-nm CMOS technology node

Abstract

The Advanced Metrology Advisory Group (AMAG) is a council composed of the chief CD-metrologists from the International SEMATECH consortium's Member Companies and from the National Institute of Standards (NIST). The AMAG wrote and, in 2000, updated the "Unified Advanced CD-SEM Specification for Sub-0. 1 8um Technology (Version 2000)" [Deleporte, et al., 2001J to be a living document which outlines the required performance of advanced CD-SEMs for vendor compliance to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors [ITRS, 2001J, and also conveys other Member companies' collective needs to vendors. Following this specification, a benchmarking effort of the four currently available advanced CD-SEMs has been performed. This paper presents the results of this effort.Previous studies under this same project have been published [Deleporte, 2000].The AMAG Unified Specification includes sections outlining the test methodologies and wafer-target requirements for each parameter to be benchmarked, and, if applicable, prescribes a target specification compatible with the ITRS.Parameters to be considered include:. Precision, Repeatability and Reproducibility . Accuracy . Charging and Contamination . Pattern Recognition and Navigation Accuracy . Throughput . Instrumentation OutputsThe exact results of this project have been communicated to the International SEMATECH Member Companies and to the relevant tool suppliers. While actual identity of the tools in question and the exact numerical results cannot be communicated outside of this group, this report serves as a platform to communicate the current general performance abilities of advanced CD-SEM tools to the CD-Metrology community at large through showing general ranges of the values of the results. Also included is a comparison of progress with respect to the ITRS.

An Improved Dimensional Measurement Method of Staircase Patterns With Higher Precision in 3D NAND

“…The overlay is basically calculated by 10 parameters: translation along X and Y axis (T X , T Y ), wafer expansions along X and Y axis (M X , M Y ), the rotation (R ), non-orthogonality (NO), symmetric and asymmetric field magnification (M S , M A ), symmetric and asymmetric field rotation (R S , R A ). The overlay deviations along X and Y axis δ X and δ Y are expressed as below [27]:…”

“…The overlay of SS5 to SS0 is measured to be ∼20 nm, that is, δ X can be set as 20nm. From reference [27], the measurement precision is about 1% of dimension for etched isotropic line larger than 100 nm. The distance between the edges of staircase and SS0 anchors are not larger than 1 micron, so δ d l1 , δ d l2 , δ d r1 , δ d r2 are set as 10 nm conservatively.…”

Subnanometer wavelength metrology of lithographically prepraed structures: a comparison of neutron and X-ray scattering.

“…Their goal presents significant challenges to metrologies based on scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and electrical line width (ECD). [1][2][3][4] SEM and AFM offer the advantage of real space imaging of arbitrary shapes. This capability is especially useful in the limit of non-repeating patterns or locating low concentrations of defects such as voids.…”