Fast calculation of images for high numerical aperture lithography

Alan E. Rosenbluth; Gregg M. Gallatin; Ronald L. Gordon; William Hinsberg; John Hoffnagle; Frances Houle; Kafai Lai; Alexey Lvov; Martha Sanchez; Nakgeuon Seong

doi:10.1117/12.537716

28 May 2004 Fast calculation of images for high numerical aperture lithography

Alan E. Rosenbluth, Gregg M. Gallatin, Ronald L. Gordon, William Hinsberg, John Hoffnagle, Frances Houle, Kafai Lai, Alexey Lvov, Martha Sanchez, Nakgeuon Seong

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 5377, Optical Microlithography XVII; (2004) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.537716
Event: Microlithography 2004, 2004, Santa Clara, California, United States

Abstract

Many hitherto small effects will become numerically significant in lithography at 70nm and below. The simple assumptions of scalar imaging and uniformly-polarized sources will no longer be tenable. Contrast losses in the resist (e.g. by diffusion) will become appreciable. In addition, the elements of 157nm lenses will be intrinsically polarizing due to spatial dispersion in CaF2, and in general lenses will exhibit residual polarization aberrations. We show here that these effects can be accounted for in a fast "sum-of-coherent-systems" (SOCS) algorithm that is suitable for model-based optical proximity correction (MBOPC). First, we cast the classic equations of vector image formation in a new form that explicitly distinguishes scalar and vector field terms. Lens birefringence is then added to the model; in doing so we take into account the classic phenomenon of double refraction, wherein a given ray splits into two rays each time it passes through an element. In principle, each incident ray then gives rise to an extended family of rays in the exit pupil. However, we show that this coherent set of rays can be merged into a single plane-wave component of the image, allowing a Jones matrix pupil to be defined. Once the vector imaging equations are modified to accommodate customized polarization distributions in the source as well as matrix pupils in the lens, we show that tractable SOCS kernels can be obtained under a generalization of the thin-mask approximation. Such models can be extended to include non-optical effects like resist blur, along with empirical modeling terms. We also discuss computational efficiencies that can be achieved when calculating SOCS kernels, for example by iteratively refining kernels calculated from a reduced basis, and by exploiting system symmetry (radial, dipole, or quadrupole).

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Alan E. Rosenbluth, Gregg M. Gallatin, Ronald L. Gordon, William Hinsberg, John Hoffnagle, Frances Houle, Kafai Lai, Alexey Lvov, Martha Sanchez, and Nakgeuon Seong "Fast calculation of images for high numerical aperture lithography", Proc. SPIE 5377, Optical Microlithography XVII, (28 May 2004); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.537716

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