UV NIL template making and imprint evaluation

摘要

UV NIL shows excellent resolution capability with remarkable low line edge roughness, and has been attractingpioneers in the industry who were searching for the finest patterns. We have been focused on the resolution improvement in NIL template making with a 100keV acceleration voltagespot beam EB writer process, and have established a template making process to meet the requirements of the pioneers.Usually such templates needed just a small field (several hundred microns square or so). Now, for several semiconductor devices, the UV NIL is considered not only as a patterning solution for R&Dpurpose but eventually as a potential candidate for production, and instead of a small field, a full chip field mask isrequired. Although the 100kV EB writers have excellent resolution capability, they are adopting spot beams (SB) togenerate the pattern and have a fatally low throughput if we need full chip writing. In this paper, we are focusing on the 50keV variable shaped beam (VSB) EB writers, which are used in current 4Xphotomask manufacturing. The 50keV VSB writers can generate full chip pattern in a reasonable time, and by choosingthe right patterning material and process, we achieved resolution down to 28nm.