The extreme ultraviolet (EUV) pellicle on the EUV mask is used to prevent the image distortion, and the lifetime of the pellicle is important because it is directly related to the yield. However, particle defects can significantly impact the lifetime of the pellicle, causing thermal or mechanical damage such as deformation or increased temperature. To study these effects, we explored how particle defects affect the pellicle, including scenarios where defects on the pellicle or collide with it. We found that there was no temperature and stress accumulation with repeated exposure of the pellicle regardless of the defect exitance. The collision of flying particles gave little mechanical effect with the known impulse inside the scanner. The metal-silicide core pellicles showed better thermal stability compared to the poly-silicon core pellicles and that could be the reason why metal-silicide pellicles showed longer lifetime.
The pellicle prevents image errors due to contaminated particles in the EUV mask and protects the mask for a stable process. However, the lifetime of the pellicle could be shortened due to deformation and destruction caused by the collision of the particle defects in the chamber. Therefore, in order to increase the lifetime of the pellicle, it is required to develop an optimal pellicle material and structure that is resistant to deformation and destruction and has excellent mechanical stability. Accordingly, it is necessary to know the deformation caused by the particle collision and estimate the lifetime of the pellicles with different mechanical stability. In this study, we simulate the collision of particle defects for the pellicle and compare the mechanical stability depending on the single-layer pellicle materials.
For finer linewidth patterning, 0.55 numerical aperture (NA) should be used instead of the existing 0.33 NA. In 0.55 NA extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL), to alleviate the mask 3D effect and stochastic noise, which is stronger, it is necessary to develop an optimal phase shift mask (PSM) and multilayer mask for high NA. Mask structure is used PSM with composed of Ru-alloy/TaBO and multilayer composed of ruthenium (Ru)/silicon (Si), which is expected to be effective in mitigating mask 3D effect and improving imaging performance. The absorber reflectance was checked which is changed by variables such as pattern existence, target CD, and pitch ratio. In addition, by examining the relationship between the change in absorber reflectance and normalized image log slope (NILS), it was determined whether the mask structure for high NA was changed by the target pattern changes.
Background: Repeated exposure of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) masks to UV radiation exacerbates the thermal deformation of the constituent materials. In particular, for systems with high numerical apertures (NAs) in next-generation EUV lithography machines, new structures and materials are needed to negate the shadow and three-dimensional effects of masks. However, because masks with such materials and structures have larger absorption and thermal expansion coefficients than conventional EUV masks, they may undergo new, unidentified thermal deformations.
Aim: This study aimed to evaluate the temperature accumulation and thermal deformation of EUV masks owing to radiation exposure.
Approach: The temperature accumulation and thermal deformation in EUV masks were compared and analyzed using various cooling conditions and patterns as well as various materials and structures.
Results: The thermal deformation increased with increasing pattern density. The results indicate that more careful control could be required regarding the pattern density and shape. Compared with conventional EUV masks, the high-NA EUV masks exhibited considerable thermomechanical deformations owing to their different multilayers and absorbers. However, the deformation could be reduced to the level of conventional EUV mask deformation through appropriate cooling.
Conclusions: The thermal deformation due to exposure is intensified depending on the mask structure, material, and pattern change; however, the thermal deformation can be alleviated with proper mask cooling.
Background: Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) pellicles are affected by heat deformation due to energy absorption during EUV exposure. Defects can accelerate thermal deformation, thereby shortening pellicle lifetime.
Aim: We compared the thermal stress and thermomechanical stability with different defects, focusing on the internal defects that occur during the fabrication of EUV pellicles.
Approach: Pellicles resistant to high thermal stress can be fabricated based on mechanical properties. To evaluate this, we compared the mechanical stability based on robustness against thermal stress during exposure.
Results: Our results show that external contaminants had a greater contribution than internal defects on the mechanical stability of pellicles. However, pellicles with internal defects exhibited increased thermal stress and decreased mechanical stability compared with defect-free pellicles during EUV exposure.
Conclusions: Thermal stress is used as an indicator in most studies to predict pellicle lifetime, but evaluation of thermomechanical stability including thermal stress and mechanical durability is required because the material can break under low thermal stress depending on the mechanical properties, and pellicle defects can be a major cause of shortening the lifetime of pellicles.
As the width of the line decreases, there are advantages such as improved performance, reduced unit price, and reduced power consumption, but high accuracy is required. Heat deformation by exposure light is one of several factors that reduces accuracy. These variations cause overlay and focus problems and can sometimes lead to serious overlay and CD variation. Because the linewidth is reduced to x nm, the overlay error of several nm and the critical dimension (CD) value are also greatly affected. Currently, it can be solved to some extent by stage adjustment and fine-tuning, but the problem still remains. In this paper, we checked the mechanism of wafer deformation due to energy absorption during exposure, changing the conditions of pattern linewidth and line and space (L/S).
The lifetime of the EUV pellicle might be reduced, if contaminant particles accumulate on the pellicle during the EUV lithography process. Through the simulation, the temperature change, deformation, and stress of the pellicle with the type, shape, size, number and location of contaminated particles were examined. And the lifetime expectancy of pellicles for EUV lithography of various structures was compared through a relative comparison of failure points due to thermal deformation. The difference in thermal properties such as heat capacity, thermal conductivity, emissivity, and thermal expansion coefficient of the pellicle and the contaminated particle generated thermal stress in the area where the pellicle and the contaminated particle abutted, and the thermal stress increased as the exposure was repeated. In addition, if exposure continued even after the convergence of temperature, deformation, and thermal stress, physical fatigue due to exposure and cooling could accumulate and shorten the lifetime of the pellicle.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.