This paper reports on an all-out effort to reduce the intersite gap of the resist outgassing contamination growth in the results obtained under the round-robin scheme. All test sites collaborated to determine the causes of such gaps. First, it was determined that wafer temperature during exposure could impact the amount of contamination growth. We discovered a huge intersite gap of wafer temperatures among the sites by using a wafer-shaped remote thermometer with wireless transmitting capability. Second, whether the contamination-limited regime was attained during testing could have been another primary root cause for such a difference. We found that for one of the model resists whose protecting unit had lower activation energy and molecular weight the contamination-limited regime was insufficient at one test site. Third, the ratio of the exposed area to pumping speed is necessary to equalize contamination growth. We validated the effect of matching the ratio of exposure area to pumping speed on reducing the intersite gap. This study and the protocols put in place should reduce the intersite gap dramatically.
In this work, we discuss several parameters influencing extreme ultraviolet (EUV) resist qualification test results. The witness sample resist qualifications test is implemented on several different instruments world wide. The original protocol for the test developed by the tool manufacturer requires that a 300 mm wafer be exposed to a dose to clear in one hour. Also required is that the carbon contamination rate on the witness sample be mass limited, i.e., that the rate be saturated with respect to the EUV or e-beam intensity. Simple arguments have been presented in the past to show that the thickness of the carbon growth should be inversely proportional to the pumping speed and proportional to the area exposed if dose and duration were held constant. The present experiments demonstrate the real-life limitations of these arguments and provide validation to our area scaling procedure to equate test results done with 200 mm wafers to results expected for 300 mm wafers. In the process of studying the dependence of carbon growth on pumping speed, we encountered the important effect of increased partial pressure on the degree of intensity saturation.
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