EUV contact holes and pillars patterning

In this paper, we will present the experimental comparison results on contact holes (CHs) and pillars patterning in EUV lithography with several candidate processes. Firstly, we have compared the normalized image log-slope (NILS), local critical dimension uniformity (LCDU) and dose-to-size (DtS) with respect to positive tone imaging (PTI) and negative tone imaging (NTI) process by EUV stochastic simulation. From the simulation results, we found that NTI process has higher absorbed photon density that can reduce the DtS and the LCDU of pillars pattern is improved with higher NILS compared to CHs patterning with similar DtS. So we have experimentally evaluated the pillars patterning process with 0.25NA EUV scanner system and compared the process margin, LCDU and DtS with the same parameters of the CHs pattering process. Further, we have demonstrated the CHs patterning with reverse process from pillars by using the dry development rinse process (DDRP). Different to the simulation results, the experimental LCDU results of pillars pattern and CHs pattern by DDRP show worse values comparing with the reference resist CHs pattern. In order to analyze these results, we have investigated the effect of flare, target CD, PR thickness and mask stack of the experimental conditions. Furthermore, we have evaluated the pillar patterning with NTD resist and by DDRP.