Implementation of ArF Resist Processes for 130nm and below.

About one year ago, first generation full field ArF step and scan systems (193nm) have been introduced and this has triggered a lot of activity in 193nm lithography. Significant progress has been made in both ArF resist performance and exposure tool characterization. For introduction of 193nm technology, a lot will depend on the maturity of the 193nm resists. Besides lithographic performance, dry etch selectivity with respect to various substrates will play an important role as well as other integration aspects such as BARC compatibility and proximity effects. In this paper, the status of ArF lithography is reviewed for the 130nm node with emphasis on the integration aspects. It will be demonstrated that the state-of-the-art 193nm resists can already be used for integration in critical layers (gate and contacts) of typical CMOS processes. Initial results for the 100nm node using alternating phase shifting masks and quadrupole illumination look very promising for 193nm.