CEA-Leti said that its multi-partner programmes, IDEAL and IMAGINE, have demonstrated cost-effective solutions that extend 193 nm immersion lithography for 1X nodes for critical levels such as contact and via, and for the cut layer, when multi-patterning is used.
Leti and Arkema launched the IDEAL program in 2011 to develop lithography techniques based on nanostructured polymers, using 300 mm directed self-assembly (DSA) process and material solutions for 1X nodes. The partners, which include Sokudo, Tokyo Electron, STMicroelectronics and advanced academic laboratories, such as LTM and LCPO, have demonstrated DSA resolution capability down to sub-10 nm half-pitch.
“IDEAL is addressing the limits of conventional optical lithography with a technological solution that offers potential cost-reduction opportunities,” said Serge Tedesco, Leti’s lithography program manager. Self-assembly lithography with block copolymer is a highly promising complementary technology due to its low manufacturing costs and its straightforward integration in existing device-manufacturing processes.”
The collaboration also recently completed DSA process integration in Leti’s 300 mm pilot line and new specific modules have been implemented in the 300 mm Sokudo DUO Track for coating, baking and PMMA removal, one of the key steps in DSA process implementation.
IMAGINE, a multiple electron-beam-lithography R&D programme with a dozen partners, is focused on developing maskless lithography (ML2) based on MAPPER Lithography tools for high throughput.
The IMAGINE program this year will interface a 1,300-electron-beam tool (Matrix platform) with the Sokudo 300 mm DUO Track, targeting a throughput of one wafer per hour. That will be followed by a 13,000-beam system producing a throughput of 10 wafers per hour in early 2015. The longer-term goal is a cluster of 10 modules allowing a throughput of 100 wph to support 1X nm logic-nodes production.
Launched as a three-year project in 2009, IMAGINE was extended for four years in 2012. Besides Leti and MAPPER, the program also includes TSMC, STMicroelectronics, Nissan Chemical, TOK, Dow, JSR Micro, Sokudo, TEL, Mentor Graphics and Aselta Nanographics.
“These concrete results clearly show the industry that DSA and ML2 can extend 193nm immersion lithography by providing cost-effective solutions for critical-layer patterning,” Tedesco said. “They also demonstrate the value of combining the broad and deep technological strengths of Leti, MAPPER, Arkema, and all our partners in programs focused on meeting the demands at 1X nodes.”