EUVL alternating phase shift mask

Abstract

Extreme ultra-violet Lithography (EUVL) alternating phase shift mask (APSM) or other optical enhancement techniques are likely needed for 16nm (half pitch) technology generation and beyond. One possible option is the combination of EUVL and APSM. The fabrication of EUVL APSM is more difficult than either the fabrication of an EUVL binary mask or a conventional optical APSM mask. In the case of EUVL APSM, the phase difference in the two regions (0 and 180-degree phase regions) is created by a phase step in the substrate prior to the multilayer (ML) coating. The step height that induces 180-degree phase mismatch in the ML is determined by [λ/(4cosθ)](2m+1), where m are integers (0, 1, 2,...). In this experiment, we targeted for a step height with m=1. The same mask design also contains the standard binary structures so that the comparison between the EUVL APSM and the EUVL binary mask can be performed under the same illumination and wafer process conditions. The EUVL APSM mask was exposed using Nikon's EUV1 scanner in Kumagaya Japan. The wafer level results showed higher dense line resolution for EUVL APSM as compared to that of EUVL binary mask. APSM also showed improved line width roughness (LWR) and depth of focus (DoF) as compared to the best EUVL binary results obtained with C-dipole off-axis illumination (OAI). The wafer CD resolution improvement obtained by APSM in this experiment is partially limited by the resist resolution and the mask phase edge spread during ML deposition. We believe that wafer CD resolution and can further be improved with imaging imbalance compensation mask design and improvements in resist resolution and the phase generation portion of the mask fabrication process. In this paper, we will discuss in detail the mask fabrication process, wafer level data analysis, and our understanding of EUVL APSM related issues.