Full Field, ArF Immersion Projection Tool

Author

Owa, Soichi ; Shiraishi, Kenichi ; Nagaoka, Shirou ; Fujiwara, Tomoharu ; Ishii, Yuuki

Author_Institution

Nikon Corp., Saitama

fYear

2006

fDate

22-24 May 2006

Firstpage

63

Lastpage

70

Abstract

Immersion lithography is rapidly approaching the manufacturing phase. A production-quality exposure tool system with NA = 1.07 (Nikon NSR-S609B) was constructed to target the start of immersion lithography for IC manufacturing in 2006. Its projection optics has very small wave-front aberration and lowest local flare levels. The overlay issue has been analyzed, and its cause was found to be evaporation cooling. With the tandem stage and local fill nozzle implemented in the S609B, we have successfully avoided the evaporation cooling so that the good wet-to-dry mix-and-match overlay data have been obtained. The major part of immersion specific defects is caused by dried water-droplets, i.e. water-marks. The local fill nozzle has eliminated this defectivity by avoiding airflow in the nozzle. In the future, water immersion with NA = 1.30 optics will be used for half-pitch 45 nm manufacturing

Keywords

argon compounds; immersion lithography; light polarisation; nozzles; quality management; ultraviolet lithography; ArF; catadioptric optics; exposure tool system; immersion defects; immersion lithography; immersion projection tool; integrated circuit manufacturing; lowest local flare levels; nozzles; polarized illumination; production-quality; projection optics; water immersion; wave-front aberration; Cooling; Heating; Lenses; Lighting; Lithography; Manufacturing; Mirrors; Open wireless architecture; Optical polarization; Resists;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference, 2006. ASMC 2006. The 17th Annual SEMI/IEEE

Conference_Location

Boston, MA

ISSN

1078-8743

Print_ISBN

1-4244-0254-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ASMC.2006.1638725

Filename

1638725