Solutions with precise prediction for thermal aberration error in low-k1 immersion lithography

Thermal aberration becomes a serious problem in the production of semiconductors for which low-k1 immersion lithography with a strong off-axis illumination, such as dipole setting, is used. The illumination setting localizes energy of the light in the projection lens, bringing about localized temperature rise. The temperature change varies lens refractive index and thus generates aberrations. The phenomenon is called thermal aberration. For realizing manufacturability of fine patterns with high productivity, thermal aberration control is important. Since heating areas in the projection lens are determined by source shape and distribution of diffracted light by a mask, the diffracted pupilgram convolving illumination source shape with diffraction distribution can be calculated using mask layout data for the thermal aberration prediction. Thermal aberration is calculated as a function of accumulated irradiation power. We have evaluated the thermal aberration computational prediction and control technology "Thermal Aberration Optimizer" (ThAO) on a Nikon immersion system. The thermal aberration prediction consists of two steps. The first step is prediction of the diffraction map on the projection pupil. The second step is computing thermal aberration from the diffraction map using a lens thermal model and an aberration correction function. We performed a verification test for ThAO using a mask of 1x-nm memory and strong off-axis illumination. We clarified the current performance of thermal aberration prediction, and also confirmed that the impacts of thermal aberration of NSR-S621D on CD and overlay for our 1x-nm memory pattern are very small. Accurate thermal aberration prediction with ThAO will enable thermal aberration risk-free lithography for semiconductor chip production.