Research on Lithography Based on the Digital Coding-mask Technique

Digital coding-mask technique based on digital micro-mirror devices (DMD) is proposed in this paper. The fundamental rule of digital coding-mask technique is to modulate the incident light intensity by adjusting the transmittance of the units on the coding-mask. The transmittance is controlled by the apertures on the units of the coding-mask. Lohmann's III coding method and error diffusion coding method are employed to coding mask, and wavelet transformation is used to suppress the background noise of the mask image. Real-time control on the image of the digital coding mask can be realized by loading the coded mask image to DMD, which is driven by a computer. Digital coding-mask technique gives full play of the advantages of DMD, such as real time and flexibility. In addition, the digital coding-mask technique is helpful to deal with the problem of mask aberration, which is caused by the nonlinear effect in the process of projection and exposure. This technique can also make use of optimization algorithm to suppress the background noise of the digital coding-mask images so that the quality of the relief structure of photoresist is improved.