Recent progress of electron projection lithography

Summary form only given, as follows.Recently immersion lithography has attracted much attention due to its potential resolution for a 65 nm technology node and beyond. However electron projection lithography (EPL) is still promising candidate for a 45 nm technology node because hole layers of around 60 nm are difficult to be delineated even with ArF immersion and EUV lithography might delay to meet a production edge of a 45 nm node in 2009. In addition, for SoC business model which needs variety of products to be thrown into the market in a short term EPL is superior because its mask costs would be cheaper than those of conventional photo-reticles which always need complicated OPC patterns and phase shift patterns, We describe current performances of EPL(EB1A) tool in Selete and trials of M&M applications of EPL to via chain device fabrication. We also discuss about coulomb effects in a high current region and evaluate the Nikon´s beam blur simulation comparing with measured beam blurs. These would support the realities of Nikon´s fl -production tool for a 45 nm node. To increase overlay accuracy we will proposet a global mask IF correction method and expect the overlay accuracy in P -production tool.