Evaluation of fine pattern definition with electron-beam direct writing lithography

Tsann-Bim Chiou; Peter Hahmann; Ming-Chi Liaw; Tiao-Yuan Huang; Simon M. Sze

doi:10.1117/12.390104

21 July 2000 Evaluation of fine pattern definition with electron-beam direct writing lithography

Tsann-Bim Chiou, Peter Hahmann, Ming-Chi Liaw, Tiao-Yuan Huang, Simon M. Sze

Proceedings Volume 3997, Emerging Lithographic Technologies IV; (2000) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.390104
Event: Microlithography 2000, 2000, Santa Clara, CA, United States

Abstract

Electron beam (e-beam) lithography is one of the potential candidates for defining fine patterns smaller than 100 nm. To increase throughput, variably shaped beams with vector scan and cell projection techniques have been proposed on the e- beam system. In order to achieve high pattern fidelity in the e-beam lithography special care must be taken with respect to effects, that could result from shot-to-shot, subfield-to- subfield, and stripe boundaries. The key considerations on the pattern fidelity are dimension control and edge roughness. In this paper, methods to enhance pattern fidelity are proposed and discussed. A Leica's WEPRINT 200 system (Leica Microsystems Lithography GmbH), which exerts exposure while continuously moving the stage technique to increase throughput, is used for evaluating the effectiveness of these methods. For the dimension uniformity, the important task is to master shot butting, subfield and stripe stitching and counteract the proximity effects. By employing beam sizing for proximity effect correction and double-pass exposure to suppress stitching error, the dimension variation is largely eliminated. Several factors including accelerating voltage, beam size, proximity effect, beam blur due to Coulomb interaction, and process controllability are found to affect the CD accuracy. To improve the CD accuracy, pattern-bias compensation and proximity effect correction methods are employed in 0.1 micrometer range and below. Good results on dimension accuracy are obtained by properly considering the intra- and inter-proximity effects. Finally, the performance comparison between these methods is discussed.

Citation Download Citation

Tsann-Bim Chiou, Peter Hahmann, Ming-Chi Liaw, Tiao-Yuan Huang, and Simon M. Sze "Evaluation of fine pattern definition with electron-beam direct writing lithography", Proc. SPIE 3997, Emerging Lithographic Technologies IV, (21 July 2000); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.390104

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