Lithography

Standard lithography and nanolithography

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Lithography

Process to generate patterns with a specific geometry. These patterns

are used to define local areas of doping, metallization, etching, etc.
Depending on resolution, different lithography techniques are defined:

Standard lithography (optical, photolitography)

Electron beam lithography, Nanoimprint lithography
X-ray lithography
Others
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Lithography
Steps of a lithography process:
1. Deposit of a photoresist on the substrate surface
2. Exposure to: light, electrons, x-ray, etc
3. Development
4. Curing
5. Removal

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Lithography

Photoresist characteristics

1.

It is composed of a synthetic polymer and a solvent. The polymer is sensitive

to the light, e-beam, X-ray, etc, what means either the formation of long
polymer interconnected chains (negative resist), or the fragmentation of a
long chain into smaller pieces (positive resist) upon exposure.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

It is easily removed using organics (acetone)

It is highly resistant to most acids
It is highly resistant to high temperatures
Viscosity is critical. With time the solvent evaporates increasing viscosity
The grain size, among other factors, determines the resolution

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Lithography

Photoresist deposition:

Prebake and clean the substrate (clean room).

The resist is deposited by spin coating
The substrate is held on a chuck using vacuum.
A resist drop is deposited on the spinning substrate surface.
The high speed rotation produces an homogeneous resist film.

hole

Spin direction
RPM max. 12.000

Vacuum pump

Wafer sticks by vacuum

Vacuum pump

Vacuum pump

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Lithography
Photoresist deposition
The final resist thickness depends on:

The rotation speed (centrifugal force)

Resist viscosity (T, solvent, etc..)

Solvent evaporation during spinning

Number of sequential droplets

Industrial labelling code:

RESIST AZ 4533

Spinner

The last two numbers indicate the thickness

x 100 nm for a rotation speed of 4000 rpm =
3,3 m
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Lithography

Photoresist deposition:

In general:
The final thickness depends on the reciprocal of the square root of the angular velocity
7

At the beginning the solvent

evaporates rapidly.
After a few seconds, the
amount of solvent stabilizes,
thus keeping constant the
resist thickness.
The spinning lasts around 2030 seconds.

Thickness (m)

6
5
4
3
AZ4533

2
AZ1518

1
AZ1505

0
2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

Velocity Spinner (rpm)

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Lithography

Photoresist characteristics and use

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Lithography

Photoresist characteristics

Prebake (softbake) of the photoresist

After the spin coating process the volume concentration of solvent is around 15-30%
It is necessary to further heat (bake) the resist to bring it down to 5%.
This improves resist properties:
It prevents the mask sticking to the resist film
It prevents the formation of bubbles
It improves the adherence to the substrate

The temperature and time of the softbake procedure are indicated by the provider company.

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Lithography

Exposure

1. Resolution: Minimum line width achievable. Depends on: (currently commercial~0.065 m)

resist thickness

wavelength (diffraction limit)

optics of the aligner system

2. Alignment: Accuracy when sequential masks are used in successive lithographic steps
3. Yield: Number of exposed wafers per hour.
Masks are made of Cr metallizations on a quartz surface (positive or negative)

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Lithography

Exposure

The resist is sensitive to light: UV higher resolution

UV
1,8
1,6

Positive

Negative

Light absorption

Two types of resists:

1,4
1,2
1,0
0,8
0,6
0,4
0,2
0,0
300 320 340 360 380 400 420 440 460 480 500 520

Wavelength (nm)

Mask aligner

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Lithography

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Lithography

Exposure

mask

Contact printing:

resist

substrate

Advantage:
Resolution = 1 m

Drawback:
Mask degradation
mask

resist
Separation between 10 - 50 m

Proximity printing:

substrate

Advantage:
Low mask degradation

lm g

Drawback:
Lower resolution: between 2 and 5 m

lm minimum line width (resolution)

light wavelength
g separation + resist thickness*

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Lithography

Exposure

Projection printing:

NA = n sin

water: 1,4

Advantages:
Improved resolution = 1,0 to 1,5 m
Low mask degradation

Drawback:
Expensive
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Lithography

Projection printing:

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Lithography

lm = resolution or linewidth

n = refraction index
lm =

equal to 1 for air

n sin NA

lens

lm
Mask
Surface

Best focusing
plane

f = focal number
f =

focal distance
n
=
lens diameter 2 NA

For small angles

sin tan

lm / 2 lm / 2
n
Focussing depth: z

tan sin 2 NA2

For lm small

and/or NA but NA

What means to use the thinnest photoresist

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Lithography

Special techniques:

Image reversal processing:

light

light

Reversal bake
115 to 130C.
Flood exposure

soluble

inert

inert

Development

Positive

development

Negative

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Lithography

Mask alignment:

Alignment
marks

mesa etched structure M-S-M detector

Si-doped
upper contact

Au / Ge

In / Sn

Si-doped
bottom contact

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Lithography
1 m

High resolution techniques

0.05 m

0.02 m
0.01 m

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Lithography

High resolution techniques

X-ray lithography
Advantages:
Very short wavelength
~ 1 nm
Resolution ~ 0.02 m
The whole resist area is exposed at
the same time (no scan necessary)
Drawbacks:
Focusing is not possible: No XR
lenses available.
Therefore, unfocused beam
Resolution losses
Very expensive:
Synchrotron ~ 25 M euros

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Lithography

High resolution techniques

X-ray lithography

Mask gap

Finite spot

g
d r
L
g
a
L

L = 50 cm
g = 40 m

= 0.2 m

a = 3 mm

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Lithography

High resolution techniques

Electron beam lithography

Advantages:
Very short wavelength ~ 0,04 nm
Cheaper than X-ray (< 600 Keuros)
Easier to implement than XR
No need of mask

Drawbacks:
Exposure by scan (raster or vector)
It normally takes several hours
It needs high vacuum.

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Lithography
In raster scan system:
The beam scans sequentially
over every possible location
(pixel) on the wafer and is
turned off (blanking) when no
exposure is required

Comparison of
scanning
methods

In a vector scan system:

The beam is directed only to
the requested pattern features
and jumps from feature to
feature

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Lithography

High resolution techniques

Electron beam lithography

Resist exposure needed is indicated as dose: C/cm2

It is possible to expose under high current during a short time
(big spot size = low resolution)
or a low current during a long time
(small spot size = high resolution)

Ih
a total

d = dose
Ih = beam current
atotal = total scanned area
t = time

The spot size is proportional to the beam current.

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Lithography

High resolution techniques

Electron beam lithography

NANOLITHOGRAPHY SYSTEM
(CRESTEC CABL-9500C)
Minimum linewidth: 10 nm
Minimum spot diameter: 2 nm
Beam current: 5 pA to 100 nA

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Lithography
Example:
We use an electron beam resist with a nominal dose of 50 C/cm2 to develop 100 lines with 1mm of length and 200 nm of
width. The beam current necessary to reach a spot diameter of 200 nm is 10 pA. Estimate the total time necessary to
complete the exposure of the resist.
Dose = 50 C/cm2 = 0.5 C/m2 ;
The total area of the lines is:

atotal = 100 200 10

10 3 = 2 10 8 m 2

Therefore:

atotal
2 10 8
t d
0.5
1000 s 16.67 min
Ih
10 10 12
If we want to cover the square area inside a 2 diameter wafer with the above mentioned lines separated 200 nm between
them:
2 2
Total area to expose:

2' '
1
1 (2 2.54 10 )
A L2 A
6.45 10 4 m 2
2
2
2
2

atotal
6.45 10 4
t d
0.5
373 days!!!
Ih
10 10 12

Impossible

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Lithography

Resist heated
(T > glass transition)

hardened by
cooling down

Nano Imprint Lithography (NIL)

no heat

hardened by UV

very thin
RIE etching

State of the art: 5 nm

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Lithography

Thermal NIL

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Lithography

Need of a clean room

Number of particles per cubic foot (m3)

Yield = 0%

Yield = 75%

Yield = 93%

Yield = 98.4%

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Lithography

Need of a clean room

In a clean room there is a laminar flux of air of 30 m/min. We will process by lithography a 100 mm
diameter wafer during 1 min. Calculate the number of particles with size 0,5 m on the wafer surface if
the class of the clean room is 1000, 100 and10.

A wafer with100 mm of diameter has an area of 0.052 = 7.85410-3 m2

Air flux is 30 m/min, therefore, in 1 min 30 m 7,85410-3 m2 = 0,236 m3
(volume of air impinging on the wafer)
Depending on the class, the number of particles will be:
Class

Number of 0.5 m
particles per m3

Particles on the
surface

1000

35.000

8246

100

3.500

825

10

350

82

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Clean Room

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