The impact of MEEF through pitch for 120-nm contact holes

Each generation of semiconductor device technology drive new and interesting resolution enhancement technology (RET’s). The race to smaller and smaller geometries has forced device manufacturers to k1’s approaching 0.40. In this paper the authors will focus on the impact of mask exposure error factor (MEEF) through pitch for 120nm contacts with and without assist features. Experimental results show that although the addition of scatter bars improves depth of focus it has a negative effect on MEEF.