102 Chapter 3 CMOS Processing Technology

The wavelength of the light source influences the minimum feature size that can be
printed. Define the minimum pitch (width + spacing) of a process to be 2b. The resolution
of a lens depends on the wavelength Q of the light and the numerical aperture NA of the
lens:

Q
2b = k1 (3.1)
NA

The numerical aperture is

NA = n sin F (3.2)

where n is the refractive index of the medium (1 for air, 1.33 for water, and up to 1.5 for
oil), and F is the angle of acceptance of the lens. Increasing F requires larger optics.
Lenses used in the 1970s had a numerical aperture of 0.2. Intel uses a numerical aperture
of 0.92 for their 45 nm process [Mistry07]. Nikon and ASML broke the 1.0 barrier by
introducing immersion lithography that takes advantage of water’s higher refractive index
[Geppert04], and in 2008, NA = 1.35 had been reached. All of these advances have come
at the expense of multimillion dollar optics systems. k1 depends on the coherence of the
light, antireflective coatings, photoresist parameters, and resolution enhancement tech-
niques. Presently, 0.8 is considered easy, while 0.5 is very hard.
The depth of focus is

k2 Q
DOF = (3.3)
NA 2

where k2 ranges from 0.5 to 1. Advanced lithography systems with short wavelengths and
large numerical apertures have a very shallow depth of focus, requiring that the surface of
the wafer be maintained extremely flat.
In the 1980s, mercury lamps with 436 nm or 365 nm wavelengths were used. At the
0.25 Rm process generation, excimer lasers with 248 nm (deep ultraviolet) were adopted
and have been used down to the 180 nm node. Currently, 193 nm argon-fluoride lasers are
used for the critical layers down to the 45 nm node and beyond. The critical layers are those
that define the device behavior. An example would be the gate (polysilicon), source/drain
(diffusion), first metal, and contact masks. With such a laser, a numerical aperture of 1.35,
and k1 = 0.5, the best achievable pitch is 2b = 72 nm, corresponding to a polysilicon half-
pitch of 36 nm. It is amazing that we can print features so much smaller than the wave-
length of the light, but even so, lithography is becoming a serious problem at the 45 nm
node and below.
Efforts to develop 157 nm deep UV lithography systems were unsuccessful and have
been abandoned by the industry. In the future, 13.5 nm extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light
sources may be used, but presently, these sources require prohibitively expensive reflective
optics and vacuum processing and are not strong enough for production purposes. Some
predict that EUV will be ready by 2011 or 2012, while others are skeptical [Mack08].
Wavelengths comparable to or greater than the feature size cause distortion in the
patterns exposed on the photoresist. Resolution enhancement techniques (RETs) precompen-
sate for this distortion so the desired patterns are obtained [Schellenberg03]. These tech-
niques involve modifying the amplitude, phase, or direction of the incoming light. The