OPC with customized asymmetric pupil illumination fill

Christof T. Bodendorf; Jens Haßmann; Thomas Mülders; Karin Kurth; Jörg Thiele

doi:10.1117/12.632159

5 November 2005 OPC with customized asymmetric pupil illumination fill

Christof T. Bodendorf, Jens Haßmann, Thomas Mülders, Karin Kurth, Jörg Thiele

Proceedings Volume 5992, 25th Annual BACUS Symposium on Photomask Technology; 599224 (2005) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.632159
Event: SPIE Photomask Technology, 2005, Monterey, California, United States

Abstract

Sophisticated designs of the pupil illumination fill of scanners and steppers permit considerable improvements of the resolution and the quality of the optical projection for certain critical patterns. However, the mask layout can have quite different requirements for the resolution as well as the shape of the critical patterns in the two spatial directions. For instance, typical DRAM designs have one orientation with much higher requirements than the other orientation. This asymmetry can be accounted for with a corresponding pupil fill that has a reduced symmetry as well. It is for example possible to combine high resolution and high contrast of the most critical pattern in one spatial orientation at the cost of the other orientation. Unfortunately, this leads to an asymmetric source distribution with x-y dependent optical proximity effects. Therefore the transfer of one and the same pattern from the mask to the wafer will differ if this pattern is rotated by 90 degrees. But fortunately, this anisotropic mapping can be compensated by applying an appropriate optical proximity correction (OPC) which is anisotropic as well. In the current work, we measure on silicon the orientation dependent proximity effect for a customized and strongly asymmetric pupil illumination fill design. With this input data, we build a lithography simulation model which is able to reproduce this anisotropy well. We further perform full chip anisotropic OPC and present the actual success of this resolution enhancement technique with various measurement results and printed wafer images. We also discuss the challenges and problems of this method.

Citation Download Citation

Christof T. Bodendorf, Jens Haßmann, Thomas Mülders, Karin Kurth, and Jörg Thiele "OPC with customized asymmetric pupil illumination fill", Proc. SPIE 5992, 25th Annual BACUS Symposium on Photomask Technology, 599224 (5 November 2005); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.632159

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available