On Step-and-Scan Trajectories used in Wafer Scanners in Semiconductor Manufacturing

Al-Rawashdeh, Yazan M.; Janaideh, Mohammad Al; Heertjes, Marcel

doi:10.1109/iros51168.2021.9636016

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…To reduce the impact of residual vibration caused by acceleration, symmetric third/fourth-order motion profiles are commonly used as reference trajectories for wafer scanners. 17,18 This study utilizes third-order motion profiles depicted in Fig. 1 as the reference trajectories for in-plane motion.…”

Section: Problem Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

A novel data-based dynamic decoupling control in wafer stage motion system for focus improvement

Li,

2024

Optical and EUV Nanolithography XXXVII

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Recently, as technology nodes continue to shrink in the manufacturing of integrated circuits (ICs), performance demands for lithographic scanners have consistently risen. As critical specifications for scanners, both overlay and focus must be limited to the nanometer range. The stage-positioning accuracy along x and y axes directly affects overlay, while the accuracy along z-axis directly influences focus. The moving average (MA) and moving standard deviation (MSD) of position error during exposure can be used to evaluate the stage-positioning accuracy. The reticle and wafer stages of scanners are typically multi-input multi-output(MIMO) motion systems. The interaxis coupling of MIMO motion systems being a significant challenge to achieving high positioning accuracy.The state-of-the-art MIMO control strategy employed for the reticle and wafer stages involves the initial implementation of a decoupling controller to eliminate inter-axis coupling, followed by independent single-inputsingle-output(SISO) control design for each individual axis. The existing decoupling approaches neglect the influence of force ripple of actuator, which contributes to unsatisfactory decoupling performance. On the other hand, the efficiency of existing decoupling approaches relies on the acceleration of reference trajectory. The reference trajectories for x and y axes during exposure have high speed and acceleration, while z-axis reference trajectory has relatively low acceleration, this results in unsatisfactory decoupling performance for z-axis.In this study, a dynamic decoupling controller is proposed to further reduce the inter-axis coupling. Specifically, the controller's input signal is independent of the reference trajectory. Furthermore, considering the force ripple of actuator, a data-based iterative update algorithm is used to approximate the optimal controller coefficients. The reduction in computational complexity and the convergence properties of the algorithm are demonstrated from a model-based perspective. Numerical simulation and Hardware-in-loop(HIL) testing with established approaches confirm that, within a limited number of iterations, this approach improves z-axis stagepositioning accuracy by over 20%, while maintaining the stage-positioning accuracy of x and y axes. The proposed dynamic decoupling controller benefits on focus performance improvement.

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Section: Problem Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

A novel data-based dynamic decoupling control in wafer stage motion system for focus improvement

Li,

2024

Optical and EUV Nanolithography XXXVII

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“…Also, 𝛺 𝑒 ∩ 𝛺 𝑠 = ∅. Comparing ( 14) and (18), it is clear that the latter is the summation of 𝑚-chirp signals with constant amplitudes. The generation of the excitation signal 𝑓 (𝑡) is summarized in Fig.…”

Section: Excitation Chirps Signalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on the application, D plays a significant role in building the trajectory profiles. For example, in wafer scanners [2,3], the (almost) repetitive motion implies that 𝑃 𝑇 is fixed and known, i.e., the step and the scan lengths, and therefore D should be optimized and kept fixed, see [18]. When 𝑃 𝑇 is varying, then D must vary accordingly; to meet the kinematical constraints, as will be explained shortly.…”

Section: Building the Unit-pulse Suppress-excite Signalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, the desired system-aware reference trajectories can be designed using input shapers [17], trapezoidal [18], trigonometric functions, and S-curve input smoothing [19], continuous-time polynomials [5,20,21], polynomial basis functions [8], templates [22], finite-impulse response (FIR) filters [10,12,14], or filters based on infinite-impulse responses (IIR) [23]. According to [24], using input shapers results in faster and more effective vibration reduction in flexible systems compared to input smoothing, [18,19]. In [17], zero-vibration (ZV) and zero-vibration-derivative (ZVD) were achieved using mainly input shapers with time delays of various distribution.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Using successive convolution operations to accommodate physical system kinematical limits result in stretching the total travel time of the designed trajectories [10], which is not suitable for time-critical applications, e.g. wafer scanners, because it will reduce the system throughput [18]. Combining, for example, the ideas from [10,27] will result in system-aware trajectories whose robustness against flexible modes variations or parametric uncertainties is yet to be established.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A suppress-excite approach for online trajectory generation of uncertain motion systems

Al-Rawashdeh

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Heertjes

2023

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Model-free control for an industrial long-stroke motion system with a nonlinear micropositioning actuator

Al-Rawashdeh,

Al Saaideh,

Heertjes

et al. 2024

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On Step-and-Scan Trajectories used in Wafer Scanners in Semiconductor Manufacturing

Cited by 13 publications

References 10 publications

A novel data-based dynamic decoupling control in wafer stage motion system for focus improvement

A novel data-based dynamic decoupling control in wafer stage motion system for focus improvement

A suppress-excite approach for online trajectory generation of uncertain motion systems

Model-free control for an industrial long-stroke motion system with a nonlinear micropositioning actuator

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