A novel technique for detecting lithographic defects

This method uses accelerated electrolytic etching of metal by photoresist developer, and therefore permits developing and etching in one solution, eliminating the need for two separate process steps. This procedure is the key to identifying strictly lithographic defects, and is applied to the verification of the voting lithography scheme. Defects were deliberately introduced on masks used in these experiments. Almost complete elimination of these defects on wafer patterns is achieved using vote-taking lithography