Simulation study of directed self-assembly for 10-nm pattern formation

Abstract

Since the top-down approaches, such as the extremely ultraviolet (EUV) technique and the high-index fluid-based immersion ArF lithography, may be cover one or two generations, these lithography technology are getting more severe for the feature size scaling down to sub-10 nm. The directed self-assembly technology of block copolymers is one of the candidates for next-generation lithography. The process simulation can help to solve the easy process, the low critical dimension (CD) variation, the low edge roughness, the high throughput, and the low number density of pattern defects for the directed self-assembly technology. In this paper, a directed self-assembly lithography process of block copolymers is modeled and simulated in molecular scale. The sub-10 nm patterns can be formed by using the precise pattern placement of conventional top-down lithography methods with the well-defined nanostructures and self-healing properties of bottom-up block copolymer self-assembly. For 35-nm pattern formation, simulation results are similar with experiment results. © 2010 Copyright SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering.