As CMOS transistor critical dimensions (CDs) shrink to 35 nm and below, monitoring and control of line width
roughness (LWR) and line edge roughness (LER) will become increasingly important. We used dark-field twodimensional
beam profile reflectometry at 405 nm wavelength with a 0.9 numerical aperture (NA) objective to measure
the low levels of diffuse scattered light from the roughness on the surfaces of lines in test structures on a wafer created
by ISMI. This wafer contains a variety of amorphous etched gate test structures with a range of CDs from approximately
20 nm to 50 nm. Selected structures were thoroughly characterized for CD, LER and LWR by a critical-dimension
scanning electron microscope (CD-SEM). The integrated diffuse scattered intensities obtained from structures with
different CD and LWR values were compared to LWR as measured by the CD-SEM. The diffuse scattered optical signal
intensity showed, at best, a weak correlation to the CD-SEM measured LWR. However a plot of the diffuse scattered
intensity versus CD-SEM measured CD showed a strong, but nonlinear, correlation. This indicates that the scattering
depends not only on the surface roughness but also on the CD of the line (and presumably other details of the profile).
We review early challenges and opportunities for optical CD metrology (OCD) arising from the potential
insertion of double patterning technology (DPT) processes for critical layer semiconductor production. Due to the
immaturity of these new processes, simulations are crucial for mapping performance trends and identifying potential
metrology gaps. With an analysis methodology similar in spirit to the recent NIST OCD extendability study1, but with
aperture and noise models pertinent to current or projected production metrology systems, we use advanced simulation
tools to forecast OCD precision performance of key structural parameters (eg., CD, sidewall angle) at litho (ADI) and
etch (ACI) steps for a variety of mainstream optical measurement schemes, such as spectroscopic or angle-resolved, to
identify strengths and weaknesses of OCD metrology for patterning process control at 32 and 22nm technology nodes.
Test case geometries and materials for the simulated periodic metrology targets are derived from published DPT process
flows, with ITRS-style scaling rules, as well as rather standard scanner qualification use cases. Consistent with the
NIST study, we find encouraging evidence of OCD extendability through 22nm node dense geometries, a surprising and
perhaps unexpected result, given the near-absence of published results for the inverse optical scattering problem for
periodic structures in the deep sub-wavelength regime.
Process tolerances for critical dimensions are becoming increasingly severe as lithographic technology drives the minimum integrated-circuit feature size toward 0.1 micrometers and below. In response, Optical Critical Dimension metrology (OCD), an optical-wavelength light-diffraction technique, is currently undergoing an industry-wide evaluation as a fast, accurate, and non-destructive sub-100nm line-width monitor. As such, effective process monitoring requires detailed understanding of the correlation between CD-SEM and the OCD measurements. Correlation in CD measurements between the OCD technique and SEM techniques is investigated in this paper by measuring photo-resist gratings on a polysilicon gate film stack. Intra-grating CD variation is shown to account for scatter in the correlation plot. A positive offset in the correlation is also observed and a mechanism is proposed to account for the discrepancy. Correlation between CD-SEM and OCD is also demonstrated for samples with three different pitch sizes. A qualitative line-profile correlation between cross-section SEM (X-SEM) and OCD is presented for photoresist gratings in a Focus Exposure Matrix (FEM).
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