Measuring and assessing printability of reticle pinhole defects

Darren Taylor; Anthony Vacca; Larry S. Zurbrick; William H. Broadbent; Peter Fiekowsky

doi:10.1117/12.479355

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16 August 2002 Measuring and assessing printability of reticle pinhole defects

Darren Taylor, Anthony Vacca, Larry S. Zurbrick, William H. Broadbent, Peter Fiekowsky

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Proceedings Volume 4764, 18th European Conference on Mask Technology for Integrated Circuits and Microcomponents; (2002) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.479355
Event: 18th European Mask Conference on Mask Technology for Integrated Circuits and Micro-Components, 2002, Munich-Unterhaching, Germany

Abstract

Reticle pinhole defects below 200nm are problematic from several standpoints. The wafer manufacturer presents a specification to the reticle producer, who in turn charges the inspection tool vendors with the task of detecting pinholes of a given size. The measurement of these pinholes, especially on programmed defect test masks, becomes critical to the success of this flow. Measuring the size of these small pinholes using the current SEM method often produces inconsistent results when compared to pinhole printability. Early studies have suggested that since the SEM measures only the top surface of the pinhole, the measurement does not account for edge wall angle and partial filling which reduces the pinhole transmission and subsequent printability. This investigation focuses on several transmitted light approaches for reticle pinhole measurement on programmed defect masks. An attempt to correlate these methods back to traditional SEM and optical sizing methods will also be attempted.

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Darren Taylor, Anthony Vacca, Larry S. Zurbrick, William H. Broadbent, and Peter Fiekowsky "Measuring and assessing printability of reticle pinhole defects", Proc. SPIE 4764, 18th European Conference on Mask Technology for Integrated Circuits and Microcomponents, (16 August 2002); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.479355

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