Method and apparatus for in-situ dry development
AssigneeTokyo Electron Limited
InventorsSteven Grzeskowiak, Eric Chih-Fang Liu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An embodiment etching tool includes an etch chamber for plasma etching a first wafer to be processed; a transfer chamber coupled to the etch chamber; a first run path between the transfer chamber and the etch chamber, the first run path including a path for moving the first wafer to be processed from the transfer chamber to the etch chamber, where the etching tool is configured to dry develop the first wafer to be processed before etching a hard mask on the first wafer in the etch chamber.
Claims15
A method for forming a patterned structure, the method comprising:
- depositing a photoresist film on a hard mask material disposed over a substrate;
- exposing the photoresist film with a pattern of extreme ultraviolet radiation to form an exposed photoresist film;
- partially wet developing the exposed photoresist film on a wet development track;
- measuring a parameter of a feature of the exposed photoresist film by a parameter measuring tool and sending measurement data to a controller;
- loading the substrate into an apparatus capable of dry developing and capable of hard mask etching;
- dry developing the exposed photoresist film;
- wherein a critical dimension of the feature is equal to a target critical dimension after the dry developing;
- and
- after the dry developing, etching the hard mask material in a hard mask etch chamber to form the patterned structure.
A method for forming a patterned structure, the method comprising:
- depositing a photoresist film over a hard mask material disposed over a semiconductor substrate;
- exposing the photoresist film with a pattern of extreme ultraviolet radiation to form an exposed photoresist film;
- wet developing the exposed photoresist film on a wet development track;
- wherein wet developing the exposed photoresist film on a wet development track comprises partially developing the exposed photoresist film in a hybrid wet development and in-situ dry development/hard mask etch system;
- measuring a parameter of a feature of the exposed photoresist film by a parameter measuring tool and sending measurement data to a controller;
- loading the substrate into a processing apparatus configured for dry developing and configured for plasma etching;
- dry developing the exposed photoresist film to form a photoresist pattern;
- and
- wherein a critical dimension of the feature is equal to a target critical dimension after the dry developing;
- and
- etching the photoresist pattern into the hard mask material in a hard mask etch chamber to form the patterned structure.
A method for forming a patterned structure, the method comprising:
- partially wet developing a pattern in an EUV (extreme ultraviolet radiation) photoresist on a wet development track so that a critical dimension on a structure in the pattern is larger than a target critical dimension, the EUV photoresist being on a substrate;
- measuring a parameter of a feature of the pattern by a parameter measuring tool and sending measurement data to a controller, the controller being programmed to generate a dry develop control signal based upon the parameter;
- loading the substrate into an etching tool;
- loading the substrate into a dry develop and hard mask etch chamber of the etching tool;
- performing, one or more dry development steps using the dry develop control signal to adjust a dry develop recipe;
- wherein the critical dimension on the structure is equal to the target critical dimension after the one or more dry development steps;
- and
- etching the pattern after the one or more dry development steps in the dry develop and hard mask etch chamber to form the patterned structure.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.