Paper
8 November 2012 Fiducial mark requirements from the viewpoints of actinic blank inspection tool for phase-defect mitigation on EUVL mask
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
For Extreme Ultra-Violet Lithography (EUVL), fabrication of defect free multi-layered (ML) mask blanks is one of the difficult challenges. ML defects come from substrate defects and adders during ML coating, cannot be removed, and are called as phase defect.

If we can accept ML blanks with certain number of phase defects, the blank yield will be drastically up. In order to use such blanks, the phase defects need to be identified and located during ML blank defect inspection before absorber patterning. To locate phase defects on the blanks accurately and precisely, Fiducial Marks (FM) on ML blanks are needed for mask alignment and defect location information. The proposed requirement of defect location accuracy is less than 10 nm [1].

In addition to the previous study for which FMs were etched by Focused Ion Beam (FIB) [2], we fabricated FMs by resist exposure by E-Beam (EB) writer and etching process, and inspected FMs with EUV Actinic full-field mask Blank Inspection (ABI) prototype developed at MIRAI-Selete, EB writer and other mask inspection tools. Then we estimated FM registration accuracy for several line widths and depths.

In this paper, we will present the result of feasibility study on the requirements of FM on EUVL mask by experiments to establish the phase defect mitigation method. And the optimum ranges of FM line width, depth, and fabrication method on EUVL mask based on above results are 3 - 5 m line width, not less than 100 nm depth FM etched into ML respectively.
© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Tetsunori Murachi, Tsuyoshi Amano, and Sung Hyun Oh "Fiducial mark requirements from the viewpoints of actinic blank inspection tool for phase-defect mitigation on EUVL mask", Proc. SPIE 8522, Photomask Technology 2012, 85221U (8 November 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.976819
Lens.org Logo
CITATIONS
Cited by 7 scholarly publications and 2 patents.
Advertisement
Advertisement
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission  Get copyright permission on Copyright Marketplace
KEYWORDS
Fermium

Frequency modulation

Coating

Extreme ultraviolet lithography

Inspection

Photomasks

Prototyping

Back to Top