Proceedings Article | 4 March 2010
Pietro Cantu, Livio Baldi, Paolo Piacentini, Joost Sytsma, Bertrand Le Gratiet, Stéphanie Gaugiran, Patrick Wong, Hiroyuki Miyashita, Luisa Atzei, Xavier Buch, Dick Verkleij, Olivier Toublan, Francesco Perez-Murano, David Mecerreyes
KEYWORDS: Double patterning technology, Photomasks, Lithography, Metrology, Etching, Optical lithography, Algorithm development, Immersion lithography, Materials processing, Manufacturing
In 2009 a new European initiative on Double Patterning and Double Exposure lithography process development was
started in the framework of the ENIAC Joint Undertaking. The project, named LENS (Lithography Enhancement
Towards Nano Scale), involves twelve companies from five different European Countries (Italy, Netherlands, France,
Belgium Spain) and includes: IC makers (Numonyx and STMicroelectronics), a group of equipment and materials
companies (ASML, Lam Research srl, JSR, FEI), a mask maker (Dai Nippon Photomask Europe), an EDA company
(Mentor Graphics) and four research and development institutes (CEA-Leti, IMEC, Centro Nacional de
Microelectrónica, CIDETEC).
The LENS project aims to develop and integrate the overall infrastructure required to reach patterning resolutions
required by 32nm and 22nm technology nodes through the double patterning and pitch doubling technologies on existing
conventional immersion exposure tools, with the purpose to allow the timely development of 32nm and 22nm
technology nodes for memories and logic devices, providing a safe alternative to EUV, Higher Refraction Index Fluids
Immersion Lithography and maskless lithography, which appear to be still far from maturity.
The project will cover the whole lithography supply chain including design, masks, materials, exposure tools, process
integration, metrology and its final objective is the demonstration of 22nm node patterning on available 1.35 NA
immersion tools on high complexity mask set.
