157nm Show Goes On
"The critical concerns of last year - including calcium fluoride, pellicles and resist - have been addressed," says the symposium's general chair, Wataru Wakamiya.
At the symposium, major exposure tool manufacturers presented successes in developing commercial tools for availability in 2004, with more advanced tools of numerical aperture (NA) of more than 0.90 planned for 2005-2006. Progress was demonstrated in addressing 45nm manufacturing issues. There is already a full-field tool in operation at IMEC in Belgium.
The calcium fluoride (CaF2) needed to make lenses has been a concern because of difficulties in achieving the extremely high quality required. Over the past year, requirements for CaF2 have become even more stringent. However, results presented at the conference indicate that these more difficult requirements are attainable.
Progress has been made in developing hard pellicles - the thin, modified fused silica cover material designed to keep mask patterns perfectly clean. Pattern distortion of the wafer from the application of the hard pellicle can now be minimised. However, a traditional soft pellicle solution is still not available.
Better resolution, improved transparency and reduced post-exposure bake sensitivity have been demonstrated in photoresists.
The meeting also included a session on immersion lithography and its applicability to 157nm. This is obviously an issue of interest since some in the lithography industry believe that 157nm use might never be widespread as a result of the immersion resolution enhancement technique on 193nm machines. Indeed, Intel is not planning to introduce 157nm.
"In both wavelengths, immersion may extend the lithographic capability by more than 30%," says Dr Tony Yen of International SEMATECH, symposium co-chair.
Japan's Selete consortium and International SEMATECH sponsored the symposium. More than 60 technical presentations were made to 220 attendees. The next 157nm meeting will be held in H2 2004 in North America, co-sponsored by International SEMATECH, Selete and IMEC. The 2004 symposium will include topics in both 157nm and immersion lithography.
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