Sematech, Zeiss join hands for aerial image metrology

MANHASSET: An announcement was made by companies Sematech and Carl Zeiss regarding the agreement they have entered into which intends to develop the industry’s first-ever actinic aerial image metrology system for defect review of EUV photomasks. The AIMS EUV tool is targeted at the 22 nm technology node and beyond and is considered to be critical for defect-free extreme ultraviolet lithography masks.

Sources at Sematech say that a version of the product, that will be ready for manufacture, is scheduled for early 2014, in line with the expected introduction of EUV lithography into high-volume manufacturing by 2015.

Carl Zeiss will work in collaboration with Sematech’s EUVL Mask Infrastructure (EMI) consortium, to investigate a concept and feasibility plan for a tool that emulates the aerial image formed by a EUV lithography scanner supporting the 22 nm half-pitch node requirements with extendibility to the 16 nm HP node.

The EMI partnership is addressing the gaps that exist in known tool infrastructure by funding the development of critical metrology tools, in three phases. The first phase is designed to be one that will focus on enabling an enhanced EUV mask blank inspection capability by 2011, followed by the second phase - development of an AIMS for EUV in 2014 in collaboration with Carl Zeiss, and finally an EUV mask pattern inspection tool able to work at 16 nm HP by 2015.

Sources say that the EMI partnership is the most suitable foundation for development for Carl Zeiss to come into the picture and share their metrology experience and one-of-a-kind EUV capabilities and develop tools to enable EUV lithography for the industry.

The EUV masks used for sub-22 nm patterning must be free of defects to avoid transferring them onto chip circuits. Unfortunately, existing metrology tools are generally ineffective at finding defects below 32 nm node requirements.

The consortium was launched in February 2010 for the development of critical metrology tools that were considered too expensive for individual companies to develop independently.