Understanding of stochastic noise

Kim, Seo-Min; Lim, Chang-Moon; Jung, Mi-Rim; Kim, Young‐Sik; Kwon, Won-Taik; Ahn, Chang-Nam; Sun, Kyu-Tae; Fumar-Pici, Anita; Chen, Alek C.

doi:10.1117/12.2087559

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…The stochastic shot noise such as LWR can be modelling using statistical theories and techniques [13,14]. Modeling LWR allows us to estimate local imaging CDU and total imaging CDU before wafer exposures and measurements.…”

Section: Ler Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of EUV patterning scenario on different design styles and their ground rules for 7nm/5nm node BEOL layers

Chiou¹,

Chen²,

Dusa³

et al. 2016

SPIE Proceedings

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As the IC industry moves forward to 7nm or 5nm node, the minimum pitch of back-end-of-line (BEOL) layers could be near 30nm. Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) could be the most cost effective solution for patterning critical metal and via layers. Patterning of the critical layers would need greater than 4x exposures using ArFi lithography, leading to severe cost and yield issues. There are two potential design options, one-dimension (1D) and two-dimension (2D), for metal 1 layer. EUV's single exposure option offers superior image quality especially for the 2D design style, but scalability of a 2D design is limited by EUV with a fixed numerical aperture (NA). The single exposure of EUV is an appropriate patterning solution for printing a 1D design directly, but maintaining critical dimension uniformity (CDU) of lines and line-ends is a challenge. Scalability of the 1D design is also limited by the single exposure option. The 1D design can be patterned through a spacer film deposition to gain superior line CD control, followed by printing a cut or block pattern to create the line-ends. Since the minimum pitch of cut/block patterns is generally larger than the metal pitch, EUV's single exposure option has a potential to print the cut/block pattern at smaller pitch and resolution and offers an opportunity to further design shrink. An elongated via design helps design scalability due to an insensitive overlay error contribution to via-to-metal contact area and encroachment.

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Section: Ler Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of EUV patterning scenario on different design styles and their ground rules for 7nm/5nm node BEOL layers

Chiou¹,

Chen²,

Dusa³

et al. 2016

SPIE Proceedings

Self Cite

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“…As device dimensions continue to shrink with EUV lithography, stochastic noise is getting more and more serious such that lots of works [7][8][9][10][11][12][13] about LCDU and/or LWR have been presented in order to model and/or mitigate their impact on device performance. The basis of many of the LWR/LCDU models [9,[11][12][13] is to translate the dose fluctuation to edge placement variation based on quantum statistics. However, different definitions of effective area element finally lead to model variants of different forms.…”

Section: Derivation Of Lcdu Model For Euv Contact Holesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on the threshold resist model, for a feature exposed at a given focal plane, the correlation between the exposure dose and the aerial image intensity threshold can be described by the following formula [9,11]:…”

Section: Derivation Of Lcdu Model For Euv Contact Holesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The optical properties of three types of absorbers are listed in Table 2. The TaBN-based mask is the baseline of current industry technology for hole patterning while Gao et al [11] have shown that low-n high-k (LnHk) mask offers certain benefits in contrast, through-pitch best focus shift, and dose for metal layers. These two types of masks producing bright holes work with a positive-tone resist (CAR) whose D2C = 10 mj/cm 2 and resist blur = 4 nm are assumed in the simulation assessment of lithographic metrics.…”

Section: Imaging Performance Of Hr-psm Against Existing Absobers For ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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A study of patterning 36nm-pitch logic contact holes in a metal oxide resist using a high-reflectance phase-shifting mask that results in image reversal

Tseng¹,

Chen²,

Nam³

et al. 2022

Photomask Technology 2022

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High-reflectance phase-shifting mask (HR-PSM) is studied for patterning 36nm-pitch logic contact holes and compared with other mask absorbers in terms of imaging performance (ILS, LCDU, MEEF, etc.) and exposure dose. To this end, wafer-data-calibrated EUV resist models for CAR and MOR are used. Our simulation results show that a HR-PSM produces dark-field images at large mask CD. However, as mask CD decreases, the tone of the images is reversed and bright-field images of good contrast can be generated. Based on this observation, a HR-PSM plus MOR patterning approach is proposed for through-pitch logic contact hole applications with a minimum pitch equal to 36 nm. We show that this approach demonstrates multiple enhancements in terms of through-pitch performance and enables us to extend the practical resolution of logic contact holes below the pitch of 40 nm using the 0.33NA EUV scanner.

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“…With the shortening of exposure wavelength, the photon energy increases from 5eV at 248nm wavelength to 6eV at 193nm wavelength and then to 92.5eV at 13.5nm wavelength and low dose of high-energy photons causes the number of photons to fall low enough to cause the statistical variations [5]. This photon randomness leads to random deprotection reactions of protecting groups in chemically amplified resist and inevitably will cause the line width roughness (LWR) to increase beyond an acceptable limit.…”

Section: Stochastic Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metal-containing Materials as Turning Point of EUV Lithography

Simone¹,

Pollentier²,

Vandenberghe³

2015

J. Photopol. Sci. Technol.

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Limitations on current performances of the chemically amplified resists (CAR), as well as the productivity driven low exposure dose requirements (below 20 mJ/cm 2 ), have brought the researchers to look at a novel class of materials as possible alternative to the CA resists to simultaneously achieve resolution, line-width roughness (LWR) and sensitivity. In 2014, imec has started a new project to look into novel materials for EUV lithography with particular attention to metal containing materials (MCR) to explore alternative approaches that can offer superior characteristics in photoresist imaging: improved LWR and line collapse, high sensitivity and high etch resistance. In this paper we report the first assessment on the enablers of the MCRs from a manufacturing compatibility prospective, as metal cross-contamination and outgassing, to a device integration prospective through the patterning on the ASML NXE:3300 full field scanner exposure tool, the etch performances and new litho-etch integration scheme for 1x nm technology and below. The results obtained are highly promising and give a clear indication that other chemical paths in novel resist formulations are possible in advanced EUV lithography.

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Understanding of stochastic noise

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Impact of EUV patterning scenario on different design styles and their ground rules for 7nm/5nm node BEOL layers

Impact of EUV patterning scenario on different design styles and their ground rules for 7nm/5nm node BEOL layers

A study of patterning 36nm-pitch logic contact holes in a metal oxide resist using a high-reflectance phase-shifting mask that results in image reversal

Metal-containing Materials as Turning Point of EUV Lithography

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