Controlling CD Uniformity for 45nm technology node applications

2006 
The ITRS roadmap indicates that significant improvements in photomask processing will be necessary to achieve the design goals of 45nm technology node masks. In the past, etch systems were designed to produce an etch signature that was as "flat" as possible to avoid introducing undesirable signatures in the final product. However, as error budgets are shrinking for all tools in the process line, the signatures produced by etch systems are used to compensate for some of the upstream CD issues. Process modifications have been used successfully in this fashion, but frequently process adjustment alone is not sufficient. CD uniformity results from a complex interaction between the system and the sample. An etch system must be capable of adjusting radial, linear, and loading etch uniformity components to compensate for the specific needs of each sample. The adjustments should also be as independent of process as possible. Towards this end, experiments were conducted with various etch technologies to create specific, controllable etch signatures on demand without the need for hardware changes. CD data collected from binary chrome photomasks was used to verify performance of the uniformity adjustment technologies.
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