Maskless lithography and nanopatterning with electron and ion multibeam projection

Abstract

Multi-beam writing becomes mandatory in order to stay within reasonable realization times for the fabrication of leading-edge complex masks and templates. IMS Nanofabrication has developed multi-beam projection techniques implementing a programmable aperture plate system (APS) and charged-particle projection optics with 200x reduction. Proof-of-concept of multi-beam writing was demonstrated in 2009 with 10 keV ion multi-beams and 50 keV electron multi-beams using 43-thousand and 2.5-thousand, respectively, programmable 12.5nm sized beams. In Q4 2009 the development of a 50 keV electron multi-beam Mask Exposure Tool (eMET) was started with the aim to realize 256-thousand programmable 20 nm and 10 nm sized beams. The eMET column realization will provide important synergies for the development of projection mask-less lithography (PML2) for direct write on wafers. In order to enhance throughput a Multi-Axis-PML2 scheme is put forward with potential throughput of 5 WPH for the 16 nm hp technology node and below. Clustering such maskless tools a throughput of 50-100 WPH within a scanner floor space is envisioned. Ion multi-beam techniques may be applied for 2.5D / 3D template fabrication and resistless nanopatterning.