Impact of the non-uniform intensity distribution caused by a meshed pellicle of extreme ultraviolet lithography

Abstract

A physical optics simulation was performed to simulate intensity non-uniformity on a wafer passing through an extreme ultraviolet meshed pellicle. The non-uniformity is directly related to the coherence radius of the illumination and the mesh parameters. The intensity non-uniformity was reduced when using illumination conditions with a larger coherence radius in a fixed mesh pitch. The circular illumination sigma(r) = 0.5 can accommodate a five times larger pitch than the dipole illumination sigma(r) = 0.1. An aerial image simulation for a 16 nm half-pitch pattern was also performed to confirm the critical dimension uniformity (CDU) caused by the meshed pellicle. The CDU is directly proportional to the non-uniformity on the wafer in order to determine suitable mesh parameters that produce a small CDU through a non-uniform intensity distribution calculation. The non-uniformity on the wafer should be less than 0.2% in order to achieve the desired CDU less than 0.1 nm. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.