Defectivity modulation in EUV resists through advanced filtration technologies

D’Urzo, Lucia; Umeda, Toru; Mizuno, Takehito; Hattori, Atsushi; Varanasi, Rao; Singh, Amarnauth; Beera, Rajan; Foubert, Philippe; Vandereyken, Jelle; Drent, W.P. van

doi:10.1117/12.2560144

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…In this paper, optimum prewetting fluid was explored for high density polyethylene (HDPE) membrane filters with Pall Photokleen TM EZD-2L filter, which became the mainstream of the EUV photoresist filtration [4][5][6] . *toru_umeda@ap.pall.com; phone 81 90 7837-4576; fax 81 29 889-1957; Pall.com Correlation of remaining air volume after 700 mL throughput during filter start-up to Hansen solubility parameter distance, Ra between solvent and filter membrane [7] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Filter start-up study on HDPE membrane point-of-use filter for lithography application

Umeda

2024

Advances in Patterning Materials and Processes XLI

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An effective filter start-up method has been required by semiconductor device manufacturers, mainly in order to reduce waste volume of lithography process chemicals, which become more expensive as lithography technology advances. To quantify filter start-up status, remaining air in the filter was monitored during static-pressure-driven filter start-up using a sub-1 nm rated Pall high density polyethylene (HDPE) membrane filter varying the solvent type. As a result, correlation for the solvent throughput required for filter start-up to the solvent-membrane material affinity defined by Hansen solubility parameter (HSP) was seen. This is similar to Nylon 6,6 membrane filter results in our previous study. There are exceptions such as nBA requires less throughput than dodecane and so does PGME/PGMEA 7/3 mixture than cyclohexanone, while dodecane and cyclohexanone have better affinity to HDPE (=lower HSP distance). These exceptions can be explained by lower viscosity of nBA and PGME/PGMEA 7/3 mixture probably increasing solvent penetration speed into the filter membrane pores.These results show that quicker start-up of HDPE filtration products can be achieved for solvents with higher affinity and lower viscosity.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Filter start-up study on HDPE membrane point-of-use filter for lithography application

Umeda

2024

Advances in Patterning Materials and Processes XLI

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“…Advances in POU filters for photoresist are to a large extent associated with the higher retention membrane and better filter initial cleanliness. There are three main challenges that filter designers must deal with [1][2][3][4] , which includes:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defectivity reduction in EUV resists through novel high-performance Point-Of-Use (POU) filters

Zhang

Umeda²,

Sakakibara³

et al. 2023

Advances in Patterning Materials and Processes XL

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Filters for Extreme Ultra-Violet (EUV) lithography chemicals, like chemically amplified photoresist (CAR), are attractive because of their capabilities to remove aggregated species and reduce microbridges in high volume manufacturing. Unlike bulk filters used in high-flow circulation mode, point-of-use (POU) filter is used in single-pass mode, so the retention performance and cleanliness become the most critical factors. Earlier presentations have demonstrated the benefit of reducing on-wafer defectivities through filtration of EUV photoresists with the state-of-the-art HDPE membranes filters, Pall® sub-1nm HDPE (XPR3L). In this study, we present a novel HDPE filter specifically designed to provide high retention performance, which is mainly enabled by an improvement in retention characteristics of membrane and cleanliness in finished POU filters. The membrane was designed to have a finer pore size and better pore geometry to improve defect retention. To expedite the filter start-up process, optimized device cleaning process was applied to further improve initial cleanliness, which was indicated by GC-MS, LC-MS/MS and ICP-MS measurements, etc. Finally, the POU filters were evaluated at imec EUV cluster consisting of TEL CleanTrack™ LITHIUS Pro™-Z and ASML NXE:3400B, and comparative defect data was obtained from patterned wafers with 16nm L/S.

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