Ultimate intra-wafer critical dimension uniformity control by using lithography and etch tool corrections

Michael Kubis; Rich Wise; Liesbeth Reijnen; Katja Viatkina; Patrick Jaenen; Melisa Luca; Guillaume Mernier; Charlotte Chahine; David Hellin; Benjamin Kam; Daniel Sobieski; Johan Vertommen; Jan Mulkens; Mircea Dusa; Girish Dixit; Nader Shamma; Philippe Leray

doi:10.1117/12.2220591

15 March 2016 Ultimate intra-wafer critical dimension uniformity control by using lithography and etch tool corrections

Michael Kubis, Rich Wise, Liesbeth Reijnen, Katja Viatkina, Patrick Jaenen, Melisa Luca, Guillaume Mernier, Charlotte Chahine, David Hellin, Benjamin Kam, Daniel Sobieski, Johan Vertommen, Jan Mulkens, Mircea Dusa, Girish Dixit, Nader Shamma, Philippe Leray

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 9780, Optical Microlithography XXIX; 978007 (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2220591
Event: SPIE Advanced Lithography, 2016, San Jose, California, United States

Abstract

With shrinking design rules, the overall patterning requirements are getting aggressively tighter. For the 7-nm node and below, allowable CD uniformity variations are entering the Angstrom region (ref [1]). Optimizing inter- and intra-field CD uniformity of the final pattern requires a holistic tuning of all process steps. In previous work, CD control with either litho cluster or etch tool corrections has been discussed. Today, we present a holistic CD control approach, combining the correction capability of the etch tool with the correction capability of the exposure tool. The study is done on 10-nm logic node wafers, processed with a test vehicle stack patterning sequence. We include wafer-to-wafer and lot-to-lot variation and apply optical scatterometry to characterize the fingerprints. Making use of all available correction capabilities (lithography and etch), we investigated single application of exposure tool corrections and of etch tool corrections as well as combinations of both to reach the lowest CD uniformity. Results of the final pattern uniformity based on single and combined corrections are shown. We conclude on the application of this holistic lithography and etch optimization to 7nm High-Volume manufacturing, paving the way to ultimate within-wafer CD uniformity control.

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Michael Kubis, Rich Wise, Liesbeth Reijnen, Katja Viatkina, Patrick Jaenen, Melisa Luca, Guillaume Mernier, Charlotte Chahine, David Hellin, Benjamin Kam, Daniel Sobieski, Johan Vertommen, Jan Mulkens, Mircea Dusa, Girish Dixit, Nader Shamma, and Philippe Leray "Ultimate intra-wafer critical dimension uniformity control by using lithography and etch tool corrections", Proc. SPIE 9780, Optical Microlithography XXIX, 978007 (15 March 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2220591

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