The electron beam proximity printing lithography, a candidate for the 0.35 and 0.25 micron chip generations

Abstract

Following the trends in the semiconductor technology to higher density and smaller dimensions the light-optical tools get serious technical problems to solve the requirements on resolution, depth of focus and overlay. Besides exposure tools using DUV / excimer laser sources other technologies like e-beam and X-ray will follow. There are several requirements which have to be solved to demonstrate the capability of a lithography technique for the fabrication of ULSI circuits. Three of them, the 1. o mask technology. 2. o resolution of a high throughput exposure tool. 3. o registration capability for layer to layer overlay. will be addressed in this paper and will confirm that the Electron Beam Proximity Printing (EBP) technology can fulfill these requirements for the 64 Mbit and 256 Mbit chip generations with minimum linewidths of 0.35 and 0.25 micron respectively. © 1991.