Novel EUV Mask Blank Defect Repair Developments

摘要

The development of defect-free reticle blanks is an important challenge facing the commercialization of extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL). The basis of EUVL reticles are mask blanks consisting of a substrate and a reflective Mo/Si multilayer. Defects on the substrate or defects introduced during multilayer deposition can result in critical phase and amplitude defects. Amplitude- or phase-defect repair techniques are being developed with the goal to repair many of these defects. In this report, we discuss progress in two areas of defect repair: (1) We discuss the effect of the residual reflectance variation over the repair zone after amplitude-defect repair on the process window. This allows the determination of the maximum tolerable residual damage induced by amplitude defect repair. (2) We further performed a quantitative assessment of the yield improvement due to defect repair. We found that amplitude- and phase-defect repair have the potential to significantly improve mask blank yield. Our calculations further show that yield can be maximized by increasing the number of Mo/Si bilayers.