Contact and proximity lithography using 193 nm Excimer laser in Mask Aligner

In this paper we describe the use of an Excimer laser for full-field lithography in a Mask Aligner. The DUV light from the Excimer laser is homogenized by using micro lens based optical integrators instead of a macro lens array. A simulation of the intensity distribution for 5 pm squares was performed to visualize the diffraction effects and to show the potential of 193 nm illumination. It is demonstrated that compared to the conventional homogenization optics the MO Exposure Optics further improves the illumination uniformity, calculated as 1.8% for MO Exposure Optics and 2.9% for the A-Optics. Moreover the improved optical setup allows a modification of the angular spectrum by using exchangeable illumination filter plates (IFP). Compared to the A-Optics the main improvement effect of MO Exposure Optics is detectable in the patterning of layouts containing critical dimension from 8 mu m down to 2 mu m. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.