Background: A local tilt angle of <300 mrad results in a critical dimension uniformity (CDU) impact below 0.1 nm when a pellicle is used for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. However, the thermomechanical property guidelines satisfying this specification have not yet been established.
Aim: We present the thermomechanical property guidelines that yield a CDU impact below 0.1 nm.
Approach: The peak temperature ranges of the EUV pellicle, as a function of the emissivity, were calculated through experimental, numerical, and finite element method analyses. The wrinkle profiles were evaluated as a function of the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) within these temperature ranges. The emissivity and CTE values satisfying the specifications were obtained using the CDU impact caused by the wrinkled EUV pellicle.
Results: The wrinkle amplitude in the EUV pellicle exhibited 45% attenuation with a twofold decrease in the CTE. The maximum local tilt angles for the 17, 16, and 15 nm half-pitch patterns were 290.2, 286.1, and 272.3 mrad, respectively. CTE below 2 × 10 − 5 K − 1 and emissivity above 0.1 are suggested for the EUV pellicle.
Conclusions: The CTE and emissivity guidelines satisfying the CDU impact specifications can be used for developing next-generation EUV pellicles.
Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) pellicles are in high demand for improving the yield of EUV lithography. However, when the EUV pellicle membrane is destroyed inside the scanner, machine availability is significantly affected. The deflection of EUV pellicle membranes needs to be thoroughly studied, because when the membrane deflects beyond its limit, the membrane contacts the scanner components and leads to failure. To propose guidelines for sustaining the EUV pellicle membrane during lithography, the deflection of the EUV pellicle membrane with a range of mechanical properties should be investigated. We verified the feasibility of the finite element method (FEM) analysis by comparing the analysis results with the experimental results. Subsequently, the impact of the mechanical properties on the deflection of a full-sized (110 mm × 143 mm) membrane was investigated using the FEM analysis. The residual stress showed 6.28 and 2.9 times higher impact on the deflection compared to the Poisson’s ratio and elastic modulus, respectively. Finally, the deflection results for 84 different mechanical properties are presented. The residual stress was determined to be a crucial and controllable parameter. The presented guidelines can be used as a design rule for developing EUV pellicle membranes.
Various materials and structures have been studied to improve the mechanical and thermal properties of extremely thin membrane of EUV pellicle. We are developing pellicle membranes based on silicon nitride because silicon nitride is known to be stronger than silicon (e.g., Young’s modulus of bulk material: ~300 GPa vs. ~150 GPa). Mechanical strength is required to guarantee the durability under mask stage acceleration and venting/pumping process. However, it is difficult to characterize the mechanical properties of nano-scale membrane such as Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio and fracture strength.
In this paper, mechanical properties of silicon nitride membranes with thickness less than 50nm were characterized by bulge test, tensile test and nano-indentation. Specially-designed ‘push-to-pull device’ was used to obtain stress-strain curve of silicon nitride membrane with 1.54 µm width and 2.45 µm length, and the Young’s modulus of ~93GPa and tensile strength of 3.2GPa were obtained. Bulge-test were performed on silicon nitride membrane with 1 x 1 cm2 size, and the deformation of membrane induced by pressure load was monitored by laser displacement sensor with 0.1 μm resolution. And the data points were fitted to the theoretical equation modified for square membrane and the Young’s modulus of ~ 200 GPa was obtained. This value is higher than the one obtained by tensile test but lower than the bulk value. The detailed explanation of experimental data will be discussed during the presentation.
The defect on the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) mask can cause image quality degradation on the wafer and also poses a serious problem for achieving high volume manufacturing (HVM). Using a pellicle could decrease the critical size of a defect by taking the defect away from the focal plane of a mask. Considering the double pass transmission for the thickness of extreme ultraviolet lithography EUVL pellicle should be ~ nm thin. For ~ nm thin pellicle, the thermal stress by EUV light exposure may damage the pellicle. Therefore, an investigation of thermal stress is desired for reliable EUV light transmission through pellicle. Therefore, we calculated the total stress and compared with material maximum stress of the pellicle. Breaking or the safety of the pellicle could be determined by the induced total stress, however, the cyclic exposure heating could decrease the material maximum stress of the pellicle. The c-Si (crystalline silicon) has good mechanical durability than the p-Si (poly-crystalline silicon) under cyclic thermal exposure.
The resist underlayer (UL) has been shown to beneficially impact the exposure latitude in photolithography techniques.
As a result, the development of the resist UL is in progress for extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) as well. Since the
aspect ratio of patterns increases as the feature size decreases, a high-performance EUV UL is expected to be in high
demand.
In this study, we evaluated the optical properties of the EUV UL by using the lithography simulation tool PROLITH X5
(KLA-Tencor). We quantified the imaging properties of a 14 nm half-pitch (HP) line and space (L/S) pattern by varying
the refractive index, extinction coefficient and thickness of the UL under 0.5 numerical aperture (NA) conditions with a
conventional binary intensity mask.
These simulations reveal that the number of photons absorbed in the photoresist increases as the refractive index of the
UL decreases; this results from the increase in reflectivity from the UL/photoresist interface. Therefore, the line critical
dimension (CD) mean value decreases and stochastic imaging properties improve in the observation plane. As the
refractive index of the UL is reduced, however, the light intensity in resist and the distribution of photons is distorted by
the standing wave effect, resulting in roughness and non-uniformity in the pattern sidewall. Therefore, the refractive
index of the UL should be similar to that of the photoresist in order to get the optimized performance.
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