Actinic EUV mask inspection beyond 0.25 NA
Operating at EUV wavelengths, the SEMATECH Berkeley Actinic Inspection Tool (AIT) is a zoneplate microscope that provides high quality aerial image measurements in routine operations for SEMATECH member companies. We have upgraded the optical performance of the AIT to provide multiple image magnifications, and several inspection NA values up to 0.35 NA equivalent (0.0875 mask-side). We report on the improved imaging capabilities including resolution below 100-nm on the mask side (25 nm, 4x wafer equivalent). EUV reticles are intricate optical systems made from of several materials with wavelength-specific optical properties. The combined interactions of the substrate, multilayer-stack, buffer layer and absorber layer produce a reflected EUV optical field that is challenging to model accurately, and difficult to fully assess without actinic at-wavelength inspection. Understanding the aerial image from lithographic printing alone is complicated by photoresist properties. The AIT is now used to investigate mask issues such as amplitude and phase defect printability, pattern repair techniques, contamination, inspection damage, and mask architecture. The AIT has a 6{sup o} illumination angle, and high-resolution exposure times are typically 20 seconds per image. The AIT operates semi-automatically capturing through-focus imaging series with step sizes as small as 0.1 {micro}m (0.5-0.8 {micro}m are typical), and a step resolution of 0.05 {micro}m. We believe it is the most advanced EUV mask inspection tool in operation today. In the AIT, an EUV image of the mask is projected by a zoneplate lens with high magnification (680-910x) onto a CCD camera. The CCD over-samples the image, providing equivalent pixel sizes down to 15 nm in mask coordinates-several image pixels per resolution element. The original AIT zoneplate specifications were designed to emulate the resolution of a 0.25-NA 4x stepper, and thorough benchmarking analysis of the aberrations, flare, contrast-transfer function, and coherence was published in 2007 [1] (see Fig 1). Recent upgrades have also included changes to improve the illumination uniformity and increase the partial coherence {sigma} value. Five different zoneplate lenses are installed side-by-side to enable the AIT to emulate various stepper optical properties (see Fig. 2).
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Materials Sciences Division
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 940785
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL-991E-Ext-Abs; TRN: US200824%%233
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: SPIE Photomask 2008, Monterey, CA, 10/7-10/08
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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