The flash memory battle:: How low can we go?

With the introduction of the TWINSCAN XT:1900Gi the limit of the water based hyper-NA immersion lithography has been reached in terms of resolution. With a numerical aperture of 1.35 a single expose resolution of 36.5nm half pitch has been demonstrated. However the practical resolution limit in production will be closer to 40nm half pitch, without having to go to double patterning alike strategies. In the relentless Flash memory market the performance of the exposure tool is stretched to the limit for a competitive advantage and cost-effective product. In this paper we will present the results of an experimental study of the resolution limit of the NAND-Flash Memory Gate layer for a production-worthy process on the TWINSCAN XT:1900Gi. The entire gate layer will be qualified in terms of full wafer CD uniformity, aberration sensitivities for the different wordlines and feature-center placement errors for 38, 39, 40 and 43nm half pitch design rule. In this study we will also compare the performance of a binary intensity mask to a 6% attenuated phase shift mask and look at strategies to maximize Depth of Focus, and to desensitize the gate layer for lens aberrations and placement errors. The mask is one of the dominant contributors to the CD uniformity budget of the flash gate layer. Therefore the wafer measurements are compared to aerial image measurements of the mask using AIMS (TM) 45-1931 to separate the mask contribution from the scanner contribution to the final imaging performance.