Considering Mask Pellicle effect for more accurate OPC model at 45nm technology node

摘要

Now it comes to the 45nm technology node, which should be the first generation of the immersion micro-lithography. And the brand-new lithography tool makes many optical effects, which can be ignored at 90nm and 65nm nodes, now have significant impact on the pattern transmission process from design to silicon. Among all the effects, one that needs to be pay attention to is the mask pellicle effect's impact on the critical dimension variation. With the implement of hyper-NA lithography tools, light transmits the mask pellicle vertically is not a good approximation now, and the image blurring induced by the mask pellicle should be taken into account in the computational microlithography. In this works, we investigate how the mask pellicle impacts the accuracy of the OPC model. And we will show that considering the extremely tight critical dimension control spec for 45nm generation node, to take the mask pellicle effect into the OPC model now becomes necessary.