PROCEEDINGS ARTICLE | October 17, 2014
Proc. SPIE. 9235, Photomask Technology 2014
KEYWORDS: Electron beams, Seaborgium, Amplifiers, LCDs, Photomasks, Beam shaping, Electron beam melting, Mask making, Data conversion, New and emerging technologies
In the half pitch (hp) 16nm generation, the shot count on a mask is expected to become bipolar. The multi-patterning
technology in lithography seems to maintain the shot count around 300G shots instead of increase in the number of
masks needed for one layer. However, as a result of mask multiplication, the better positional accuracy would be
required especially in Mask-to-Mask overlay. On the other hand, in complex OPC, the shot count on a mask is expected
to exceed 1T shots.
In addition, regardless of the shot count forecast, the resist sensitivity needs to be lower to reduce the shot noise effect so
as to get better LER. In other words, slow resist would appear on main stream, in near future. Hence, such trend would
result in longer write time than that of the previous generations. At the same time, most mask makers request masks to
be written within 24 hours. Thus, a faster mask writer with better writing accuracy than those of previous generations is
needed.
With this background, a new electron beam mask writing system, EBM- 9000, has been developed to satisfy such
requirements of the hp 16nm generation. The development of EBM-9000 has focused on improving throughput for
larger shot counts and improving the writing accuracy.
