Development of an integrated 3D lithography simulator

Abstract

We have developed our own three-dimensional optical lithography simulator, LG-OLIS (LQ-Qptical Lithography Simulator), which can be applied to both the 2-D and the 3-D non-planar cases. It includes with all processes of optical lithography such as the formation of an aerial image, the exposure, the post-exposure bake (PEB), and the development processes. Several kinds of numerical methods are adopted for numerical implementation and the simulation of an aerial image and the exposure process are based on both the approximate theory and the rigorous theory. Therefore, our LG-OLiS can simulate the topological case efficiently and exactly.