With over 25 years of experience in the specialty materials industry, Dr. Heinz Kaiser is a member of the Management Board of SCHOTT AG, responsible for High-Performance Materials and Flat Glass, while also heading Sales and Market Development, Sales Excellence, and Intellectual Property. With a strong engineering background… Read More
Earlier this month, TechInsights did a teardown of the Kirin 9030 chip found in Huawei’s Mate 80 Pro Max [1]. Two clear statements were made on the findings: (1) the transistor density of SMIC’s “N+3” process was definitely below that of the earlier 5nm processes from Samsung and TSMC, and (2) metal pitch was aggressively scaled
The patterning of features outside a DRAM cell array can be just as challenging as those within the array itself [1]. The array contains features which are densely packed, but regularly arranged. On the other hand, outside the array, the minimum pitch features, such as the lowest metal lines in the periphery for the sense amplifier… Read More
Dosing for EUV lithography walks a fine line between productivity and defectivity. Fabs can choose higher-dose exposures to suppress photon shot noise [1]. However, higher doses require EUV machines to scan the wafer at slower speeds, degrading throughput [2].
On the other hand, there is the threat of resist thickness loss that… Read More
EUV resists are a key component in the implementation and optimization of EUV lithography. By converting a limited number of absorbed EUV photons into a variable number of released migrating electrons, the resist becomes the final determinant of resolution. There are two kinds of resist which are seriously considered: chemically… Read More
A comprehensive update to the EUV stochastic image model
In extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, photoelectron/secondary electron blur and secondary electron yield are known to drive stochastic fluctuations in the resist [1-3], leading to the formation of random defects and the degradation of pattern fidelity at advanced
In a DRAM chip, the memory array contains features which are the most densely packed, but at least they are regularly arranged. Outside the array, the regularity is lost, but in the most difficult cases, the pitches can still be comparable with those within the array, though generally larger. Such features include the lowest metal… Read More
With half-pitch approaching 10 nm, EUV patterning is heavily impacted by stochastic effects, which are aggravated from reduced image contrast from electron blur [1]. A two-mask (“LELE”: Litho-Etch-Litho-Etch) approach was proposed to pattern core features for self-aligned double patterning (SADP)… Read More
Peak probability at zero distance actually makes no sense
In lithography, it is often stated that the best resolution that can be achieved depends on wavelength and numerical aperture (NA), but this actually only applies to the so-called “aerial” image. When the image is actually formed in the resist layer, it also depends on an… Read More
Previously, I had indicated how detrimental stochastic effects at pitches below 50 nm should lead to reconsidering the practical resolution limit for EUV lithography [1]. This is no exaggeration, as stochastic effects have been observed for 24 nm half-pitch several years ago [2,3]. This then leads to the question of whether … Read More
