This Conference Presentation, “A holistic study of edge placement error on fin cut layer in self-aligned double patterning process,” was recorded at SPIE Photonics West held in San Francisco, California, United States.
As technology progress with scaling to meet the market requirements, the patterning characterization of dense features suffers a significant challenge for current optic tools, and measurement accuracy will be an important index and great challenge as well. Patterning can mostly be characterized with index of overlay (OVL) and CDU (critical dimension uniformity) measurement. When you break down the budget of the overlay error, one of the challenges is a gap of measurement results between scribe and device, where provides improper information to be used in overlay correction and causes process anomaly (excursion) detection, resulting in a low yield at the end of the production process. An eBeam tool, using high electron landing energies while utilizing the ElluminatorTM technology[1] for improvement backscattered electrons (BSE) imaging efficiency, can be utilized to directly capture OVL performance of device unit in-die, including local and global level, due to BSE function of eBeam tool[2]. In this paper, we demonstrate overlay measurement of M0 to Poly line in device for advanced logic node (only OVL X measurement), obtaining Overlay gap between in-die and scribe line to capture the actual behavior of device unit in-die. Massive OVL data is measured using eBeam tool with fast speed and high resolution, and local OVL results have been analyzed in detail. We’ve quantified what is the impact of overlay correction by different measurement ways whether it depends on optical tool or eBeam tool and benefits yield improvement.
Photoresist (PR) profile and defect are very important in semiconductor manufacturing, the abnormal PR profile and defect will cause the following process abnormal even affect the device performance. For example, under-cut PR profile is easy to pattern collapse, while footing will cause the pattern bottom bridge, both of these will cause device hard fail. PR profile is affected by lots of factors, such as bottom reflectivity, PR properties, focus, etc. But an important impacted factor is often ignored, that is the film property contacting PR. If the property of under film does not match with PR, it will affect PR profile seriously, even bring defect issue. So investigating the friendly interface is a meaningful topic. In this paper, we focus on the effect of film treatment on PR profile and defect. Through the experiments, the methods including O2 treatment, heat treatment, and wet treatment, the friendly methods to lithography are chosen, and the possible mechanism is proposed. The film treatment method provides us a new way to improve defect or PR profile, and further improve the lithography process window.
The requirement of overlay performance, which is determined by alignment process during exposure and overlay measurement process, is getting tighter as technology node shrinks in integrated circuit. Mark design has drawn a lot of attention since appropriately designed marks can guarantee process compatibility and sufficient device performance tracking property. Cut layers are widely used in FinFet to define active area formed by SADP (Self-aligned double patterning) or SAQP (Self-aligned quadruple patterning), of which the mark design is especially challenging for diffusion break layer since it is a cut layer that landing on three dimensional fin structure and will be aligned to.
In this paper, mark design of diffusion break layer is investigated, including alignment marks and overlay marks with various substrates and segmentations. It’s recommended that the whole process from mark definition by lithography to final formation of mark after etch should be well taken into consideration during mark design, along with substrate and segmentation to avoid defect and achieve qualified signal as well.
The reduction of line width and edge roughness (LWR & LER) becomes increasingly challenging with development of integrated circuit manufacturing industry, especially with the application of multi-patterning technology. Recent years, unbiased roughness method was well received and applied in LWR & LER characterization by using power spectral density (PSD) analysis. Measurement noise in scanning electron microscope (SEM) can be identified in the high frequency region of PSD curve. By subtracting electron beam noise effect, the unbiased LWR & LER are gotten. In our research, unbiased LWR & LER under different lithography process conditions, including reflectivity of bottom anti-reflection coating (BARC) materials, photo resists (PR), illuminations, post-apply bake (PAB) and post exposure bake (PEB) temperatures, were investigated by PSD analysis. For some of the above conditions, post-develop and post-etch LWR were also studied.
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