The wafer industry is quickly moving to the high-end technology nodes to meet the demands of advanced semiconductor applications, mask makers focus on pattern fidelity control. However, it poses additional challenges to professional mask makers in terms of process window control of pattern diversity. In this article, a reproducible pattern damaged defect is recently observed by KLA mask inspection that is unrepairable due to the large defect size. This defect, so called directional damaged defect in this paper, is distributed among multiple die in array mask and shows pinhole and LCE (Local CD Error) at the pattern line end through SEM (Scan Electron Microscope). Moreover, this defect is highly directional and positional dependence. A step-by-step analysis of the process flow via SEM is conducted and it shows that LCE and damage is caused by low conductivity chemicals during clean process. This paper proposes that the root cause is the frictional accumulation of charges by chemical flowing large size pattern so as to result in directional damaged defect. A special any-angle radial shape layout is designed to verify process window of this type defect, as a result, all the process window of wet chemical solutions can be verified.
The formation of progressive defect on attenuated phase shift mask is the main trouble after mask fabrication, especially owing to the introduction of high photon energy exposure from 193nm (ArF) DUV light during the usage in wafer manufacturing fab. Normally, these progressive defects, so-called “haze”, are reported to be the combination of ammonium sulfate which may come from mask clean process, or the combination of AMC and organic outgassing from mask surrounding environment. It is well known that this type haze can be easily eliminated by wet chemical treatment such as wet clean process, so we call it, “conventional haze”. Nevertheless, in the past few years, an obscure progressive defect, which is composed of CrOx, has been observed on attenuated phase shift mask. Normally this defect arises by forming droplets or humps in the Qz area or footing at the basal junction between MoSi and Qz. This phenomenon is dramatically semblable to Cr migration that is firstly observed on COG mask and caused by the exposure of 193nm (ArF) DUV light and electric field. Based on above experience, it may be easier to understand that CrOx type defect appears in the dummy pattern on scriber lane which is constituted by stack of Cr/MoSi/Qz. But it is so confused when CrOx type defect is observed on the phase shifter layer which is only composed by MoSi. And beyond that, this type of defect is scarcely responsive to general wet clean process. In this contribution, we classify the CrOx defect type by on-mask location with different pattern structure. Corresponding possible formation mechanism and control methodology will be discussed and evaluated. Finally, we propose the damaged-free removal process based on defect component and distribution.
The PR (Photo Resist) strip process before MoSi etch is a critical step in the manufacture of high-end PSM (Phase Shift Mask). Any impurity on MoSi film before MoSi etch would generate killer defect which leading to mask reject and yield loss. A super-thin opaque MoSi type defect called as MoSi stain in this paper was observed by KLA mask inspection that is almost unrepairable due to the characteristic of large defect size. This defect locates on Qz (quartz) area and adjacent to MoSi pattern of the mask. It was analyzed by SEM (Scan Electron Microscope) and TEM (Transmission Electron Microscope) that the components of this defect are Mo/Si/O/N, which are same as mask MoSi film. The root cause was proved in this paper to be the chemical residuals in PR strip process on Qz area of the mask that was not fully removed by clean process before MoSi etch, hence, those impacted area of MoSi film was not completely etched in MoSi etch process. In addition, the PR strip recipe was also optimized to prevent mask from encountering chemical residual to address this MoSi stain defect from occurring again without any side-effect impact on mask.
It is well known that with the development of advanced semiconductor technology, the phase shift mask (PSM) has been widely utilized in the semiconductor lithography process. Usually, the PSM blank coated with negative chemically amplified resist (NCAR) was used for fabrication of AA (Active area) layer and Poly layer mask which utilized in the logic semiconductor products. Under the electron beam (EB) writing systems, this NCAR resist showed better opaque pattern forming ability for complex OPC pattern and sub-resolution assist bar features[1]. In this contribution, a kind of defect so-called tiny MoSi defect that was captured by KLA inspection tool during NCAR mask fabrication process would be described. This kind of defect randomly scattered over the whole mask and located on quartz surface where photo resist was developed for not exposure by electron beam and Cr/MoSi was removed after dry etching process. In order to figure out this problem, we investigated the root cause of tiny MoSi defect by split condition test and cross validation, especially focused on the interaction between each process unit. According to the verification result, we would propose the possible formation mechanism and modify the recipe based on this understanding. The long-term inspection monitoring result showed that this kind defect density could be reduced from two hundred to less than twenty counts after recipe optimization.
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