Antireflex coatings

Impact of standing waves on the developed resist

Resist was exposed both to the light source and to reflected beams from resist/sample interfaces

Problem solved after coating the film with an anti-reflex material (e.g. oxinitride) before exposure

Antireflex coating ARC @ INESC: 150, 400 TiWN2

Multilevel exposure

Wafer processing - V etching / lift-off process

NEXT WEEK

Next generation lithography

- vacuum environment - direct write systems (software masks) -slow writting over large areas - very high system cost

- Air environment - Complex mask fabrication ($4k-$12k) - Resists have low sensivity - High cost X-ray sources

X-ray lithography
Advantages:
No vacuum environment required (no charged particles involved) Very small wavelength (< 14) - can produce 0.15 m features High reproducibility (exposure independent of substrate type, surface reflections)

Disadvantages:
No optics involved limited to 1:1 shadow printing (no image reduction is possible) Very expensive and complex mask fabrication (~10 days, cost is $4k-$12k) Low sensivity of the resists High cost of sufficiently bright X-ray sources (e.g. Synchrotron)

E-beam lithography
10-100 keV electron beam

Advantages:
vacuum environment required (charged particles involved) Direct write system (software mask) the smaller the beam sizes, the better the resolution can produce down to 0.01mm features low defect densities
At 30 keV, electrons travel >14 mm deep into a resist layer

Disadvantages:
Very expensive system Slow writting

Leica EBL-100, shown here with a 100 kV LaB6 electron source and a conventional SEM stage. The system is also available with a TFE source and laser-controlled stage. (Courtesy of Leica Lithography Systems Ltd.) COSTS ~$1M, for 2 inch areas maximum.

E-beam lithography comercial systems

Ion Beam lithography

Advantages:
Computer-controlled beam No mask is needed Can produce sub-1 m features Resists are more sensitive than electron beam resists Diffraction effects are minimized Less backscattering occurs Higher resolution Ion beam can detect surface features for very accurate registration

Disadvantages:
Reliable ion sources needed Swelling occurs when developing negative ion beam resists, limiting resolution Expensive as compared to light lithography systems Slower as compared to light lithography systems Tri-level processing required

Paul Scherrer Institute Electrom Beam Lithography System

http://lmn.web.psi.ch

E ~ 6 eV (75KeV) Multi-Cusp Ion Source

Ion Beam Source Ion Optics

Vacuum Chamber

Co-axial Ion Source E ~ 0.5 eV (75KeV)

Ion energies : 20 eV - 200 KeV

Beam Current : up to 500 A/cm2 Ion Specimens : H, He, Ar, Hf, Ga, Si, Au, Co, Pr, P+, BF2+, etc

Focused Ion Beam Lithography (FIBS)

Scanning Beam Exposure System
Ion Beam Cannon

Feature size is limited by spot size

Allows the exposure of very complex patterns in only one lithography step
Can take up to 6 orders of magnitude longer than mask projection technology, depending on sample size Not suitable for Industrial Purposes

Bibliography

- VLSI Technology, S.M.Sze, McGraw-Hill International Editions

- Nanoelectronics and information technology Advanced Electronic Materials and Novel Devices, Rainer Waser (Ed.), Wiley-VCH (2003)
- Microsystems: mechanical, chemical, optical, S.D.Sentura, M.A.Schmidt and J.Harrison, MIT press - Fundamentals of Microfabrication The science of miniaturization, Marc J.Madou, CRC press (2002) - Spin Electronics - Chap.16, M.Ziese and M.J.Thornton (Ed.), Lecture Notes in Physics, Springer-Verlag

http://www.cnf.cornell.edu/spiebook/toc.htm

http://semiconductorglossary.com/default.asp?searchterm=lithography