SEMATECH to demo advances and technical breakthroughs

SPIE Advanced Lithography 2013, USA: SEMATECH experts will present world-leading research and development results on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) manufacturability and extendibility, alternative lithography, and related areas of metrology at the SPIE Advanced Lithography 2013 conferences taking place February 25-28 at the San Jose Convention Center and Marriott in San Jose, CA.

“We are enthusiastic about sharing our progress on some of the most critical aspects of the development of EUV infrastructure,” said Stefan Wurm, director of lithography at SEMATECH. “SEMATECH lithographers will recount achievements in multiple areas of EUV to further enable EUVL pilot line readiness and advance EUV extendibility.”

SEMATECH engineers will report progress on EUV mask infrastructure, manufacturability, extendibility and metrology, and will showcase some of their findings in over 30 papers and posters demonstrating breakthrough results in exposure tool capability, resist advances, defect-related inspection, e-beam and nanoimprint.

More importantly, the results presented will be instrumental in driving timely creation of the remaining infrastructure required to bring EUV to production. In one area of investigation, technologists from SEMATECH’s Mask Blank Development Center will report progress with its multilayer deposition process, including recent defect printability results from an NXE3100 tool with comparison of the imaging to various simulation modeling approaches.

Other SEMATECH papers will showcase advances in metrology techniques, photoresist shrinkage, nanopolishing, scatterometry, through-silicon via (TSV) reveal, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) tomography, critical dimension atomic force microscopy (CD-AFM), critical dimension X-ray scattering (CD-SAXS)—a potential metrology technique for FinFET and 3D memory structures—and a through-focus scanning optical microscopy (TSOM) technique being explored for future defect inspection or to enable high-volume manufacturing of high-aspect ratio features.

Additionally, technologists will present a “big picture” CD metrology gaps analysis, which interrelates the combined results from years of SEMATECH CD metrology studies to summarize the outlook for various tool technologies for different applications.

“We will be showcasing impressive metrology advances achieved through collaborative research, as well as revealing new defect characterization results for EUV mask blanks that form the basis of the technology for SEMATECH’s new Nanodefect Center,” said Michael Lercel, senior director of nanodefectivity and metrology at SEMATECH.

Among the global semiconductor community’s leading gatherings, the SPIE conference series attracts thousands of specialists in various aspects of lithography and related metrology, two of the most challenging areas of advanced microchip production.