In the recent semiconductor industry, as the device shrinks, spin-on dielectric (SOD) has been adopted as a
widely used material because of its excellent gap-fill, efficient throughput on mass production and highly competitive
initial cost of ownership. Among various semiconductor applications, SOD is especially valued as the suitable gap-fill
material for shallow trench isolation (STI), because the previously adopted technology, high density plasma chemical
vapor deposition (HDP-CVD), has a significant problem with void-free gap-fill on patterns with high aspect ratios. As
SOD is spin-coated on those narrow patterns, planarization is one of the important requirements. On the course of our
efforts on developing novel modified SOD materials, we discovered that the reactivity of each SOD resins has
meaningful correlation with the degree of planarization. In this paper, three experiments have been illustrated to prove
this correlation, 1) step coverage test, 2) humid air bubble test, and 3) film thickness shrinkage upon prebake. The SOD
resin with lower reactivity turned out to exhibit 1) larger size of circle around silica-beads, 2) slower molecular weight
growth under humid bubble condition, and 3) higher shrinkage upon prebake.
In the recent semiconductor mass production, the tri-layer hardmask system has become crucial for successful patterning
in many applications. Silicon-based anti-reflective spin-on hardmask (Si-SOH), which can be built by spin-on coating, is
desirable in terms of mass production throughput and the overall cost of ownership. As the pattern size shrinks, the
thickness of photoresist also becomes thinner, which forces the thickness of Si-SOH to be thinner resulting in a tighter
thickness margin. In this case, controlling optical properties of Si-SOH becomes important in order to achieve low
reflectivity in the exposure process. In addition, the tri-layer system can be set up more easily when the etch properties
of Si-SOH can be controlled. Previously, we reported papers on silicon-based anti-reflective spin-on hardmask materials
for 193 nm lithography, immersion ArF lithography, and optimization of optical properties of Si-SOH. In this paper, the
technique for controlling etch properties of Si-SOH by a different type of monomer is described. To control etch
properties in the same resin platform, the synthesis method was modified. Characterization of the Si-SOH synthesized
by the new technique and the lithographic performance using this material are described in detail.
In the current semiconductor industry, hardmasks have become essential for successful patterning in many applications. Silicon-based anti-reflective spin-on hardmask (Si-SOH), which can be built by spin-on coating, is desirable in terms of mass production throughput and cost of ownership. As the design rule shrinks, the thickness of photoresist also becomes thinner, which forces the thickness of Si-SOH to be thinner resulting in a tighter thickness margin. In this case, controlling of optical properties of Si-SOH is important in order to obtain low reflectivity in the exposure process. Previously, we reported papers on silicon-based anti-reflective spin-on hardmask materials for 193 nm lithography and immersion ArF lithography. In this paper, the technique for optimization of optical properties, especially n and k values, of Si-SOH is described. To control n and k values, several chromophores were screened and the ratio among them was optimized. Although the amount of chromophores increased and the silicon contents decreased, our etch resistance enhancement technique allowed Si-SOH to have sufficient etch resistance. Characterization of this Si-SOH and lithographic performance using these materials are described in detail.
Amorphous Carbon Layer (ACL) and SiON system has been proven to be a good hardmask
combination. These layers are formed by a high cost, low throughput CVD process. This paper discloses a
reliable, low cost, high throughput process using a simple spin on layer structure. Through manipulation of
various parameters, additional BARC layer is eliminated and the process is further simplified to a tri-layer
structure. Also, PR/SiON/C-SOH (Carbon-Spin-On-Hardmask) system has been compared to PR / Si-SOH
(Si-Spin-On-Hardmask ) / C-SOH system and found their performances are comparable. This indicates the
PR / Si-SOH / C-SOH process is an economical yet comparable substitute.
In current semiconductor manufacturing processes, hardmasks have become more prevalent in patterning of
small features. A silicon-containing hardmask, which can be spun onto wafers, is desirable in terms of mass production
throughput and cost of ownership. Previously, we reported a paper on silicon-based anti-reflective spin-on hardmask
materials for 193 nm lithography. In this paper, hardmask materials for 45 nm pattern of immersion ArF lithography
are described. To achieve 45 nm patterning, a different base resin platform from the previous paper has been used.
Furthermore, we have improved the etch resistance by changing our synthesis method without modifying the resin
platform and silicon contents. Despite these changes, an excellent storage stability, which is one of the essential
requirements for the materials, is still maintained. Characterization and lithographic performance of 45 nm immersion
ArF lithography using our new materials are described in detail.
As the feature sizes of integrated circuits shrink, thinner photoresist coating should be used in order to avoid
high aspect ratio which can cause pattern collapse. Especially for 193 nm lithography, photoresist coating is too thin to
subsequent etching step. One of the solutions to this problem is using hardmasks which have good etch selectivity to
adjacent layers. In this paper, silicon-based anti-reflective spin-on hardmasks (Si-SOH) are described. One of the
major problems of silicon based polymers in the hardmask compositions is poor storage stability because silanol group is
reactive enough to condense each other, which can instigate molecular weight increase to yield gel-type particles. The
storage stability of our hardmask materials have been improved by thermodynamically controlled synthesis and reactive
mask strategy. Especially the reactive masked silanol groups can take part in crosslinking reaction under the process
conditions without additional deprotection step. Although this strategy could encounter intermixing problems with
other layers, we can produce silicon-based hardmasks without any deleterious effects. These hardmasks show antireflective
properties and great etch selectivity to both photoresists and organic hardmasks (C-SOH).
In this paper, we propose a new promising photo album application format, which enables augmented use of digital
home photos over a wide range of mobile devices and semantic photo consumption as minimizing user's manual tasks.
The photo album application format packages photo collection and associated metadata based on MPEG-4 file format.
The schema of the album metadata is designed in two levels: collection- and item-level descriptions. The collection-level
description is metadata related to group of photos, each of which has item-level description that contains its
detailed information. To demonstrate the use of the proposed album format on mobile devices, a photo album system
was also developed, which could realize semantic photo consumption in sense of situation, category, and person.
In this paper, we propose a method to cluster digital home photos associated with user-centric functionalities, which are event/situation based photo clustering, category based photo clustering, and person-identity based photo clustering and indexing. The main idea of the user-centric photo album is to enable users to organize and browse their photos along the semantically meaningful axes that are situation, category, and person-identity. Experiment results showed that the proposed method would be useful to organize a photo album based on human perception.
In this paper, we propose automatic situation clustering method for digital photo album. A group of photos having the same situation could have similar visual semantics. In this paper, visual semantic hints of photo are proposed and used to cluster situations. Experiments were performed with 2345 photos and results showed that the proposed clustering with the visual semantic hints was useful for automated situation clustering based on human perception.
A new approach to image segmentation is presented. Novelty consists in combining multiple image feature information together -- color feature, texture feature and pixel’s geometric location in spatial domain to separate the regions with homogeneous color, texture, and similar spatiality --, as well as grouping the homogeneous clusters in the feature space with unique manner. The proposed segmentation algorithm contains two main stages. First, the mode finding and multi-link clustering algorithm converts an image into a map of small primary regions - region graph representation. The nodes of the graph correspond to distinguished regions, and the lines correspond to relations between neighbor regions. The region map is further simplified by the secondary graph analysis and merging of neighbor regions. The performance of developed algorithm was tested by using various images obtained by a real camera.
The term "color temperature" usually represents the color of light source or the white point of image displaying devices. The color temperature can be an effective bridge between images' characteristic and human's perceptual temperature feeling against the images. It can capture human's high-level perception to improve image browsing. In this paper, our goal is to demonstrate how well the color temperature is connected to such human's perception. We demonstrate the method of subjective experiment, a color temperature mapping range for each perceptual category, and browsing accuracy of the color temperature ranges obtained from the experiment. The compact representation for the color temperature and some of usage scenarios are explained as presented in the amendment of MPEG-7 standard.
The term "color temperature" represents the color of light source or the white point of image displaying devices such as TV and PC monitor. By controlling the color temperature, we can convert the reference white color of images. This is equivalent to the illuminant change, which alters all colors in the scene. In this paper, our goal is to find an appropriate method of converting the color temperature in order to reproduce the user-preferred color temperature in video displaying devices. It is essential that the relative difference of color temperature between successive image frames should be well preserved as well as the appearance of images should seem natural after applying the user-preferred color temperature. In order to satisfy these conditions, we propose an adaptive color temperature conversion method that estimates the color temperature of an input image and determines the output color temperature in accordance with the value of the estimated one.
In this paper, an efficient method for detecting and recognizing road signs from real world scenes is presented. The main outline of this method is composed of three parts: detecting road signs, i.e. road sign segmentation, shape recognition of segmented areas, and identifying the meaning of the detected signs in a hierarchical method. We employed a texture, an RG, and a BY color opponent image for road sign segmentation, a few grid lines and a bounding box for recognizing segmented sign shapes, and compressed eigenspace representation for identifying detected signs. This method has proven to be very efficient, robust, and easy to implement. Furthermore, this method can overcome substantial amount of rotation of the detected sign and opens a great possibility for more improvement and real-time usage.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.