DUV ALTA system aerial image enhancement for improved pattern fidelity

Paul C. Allen; Alex H. Buxbaum; Samuel C. Howells; Boaz Kenan; Asher Klatchko; Peter Y. Pirogovsky; Robin Teitzel; Michael White

doi:10.1117/12.518218

17 December 2003 DUV ALTA system aerial image enhancement for improved pattern fidelity

Paul C. Allen, Alex H. Buxbaum, Samuel C. Howells, Boaz Kenan, Asher Klatchko, Peter Y. Pirogovsky, Robin Teitzel, Michael White

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 5256, 23rd Annual BACUS Symposium on Photomask Technology; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.518218
Event: Photomask Technology, 2003, Monterey, California, United States

Abstract

The ALTA 4300 system has been used to successfully write many advanced design layers previously only feasible with 50kV vector shaped beam tools. In order to further enlarge the application space of this high productivity an aerial image enhancement technique has been developed to deliver mask patterns that more closely match pattern data for corners and jogs. This image enhancement is done in real time in the ALTA system’s rasterizer by modifying the gray level mapping of pixels near the corner vertexes. SEM measurements of corner rounding with standard rasterization and the enhanced rasterization show an improvement of corner rounding radius from ~205 to ~132 nm. A direct comparison of SEM micrographs show no qualitative difference between vector scan mask features and those written with aerial image enhancement. This convincingly demonstrates that the ALTA 4300 system with the new image enhancement can write many layers requiring vector scan corner acuity.

Citation Download Citation

Paul C. Allen, Alex H. Buxbaum, Samuel C. Howells, Boaz Kenan, Asher Klatchko, Peter Y. Pirogovsky, Robin Teitzel, and Michael White "DUV ALTA system aerial image enhancement for improved pattern fidelity", Proc. SPIE 5256, 23rd Annual BACUS Symposium on Photomask Technology, (17 December 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.518218

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