Lithography system with non-invasive monitoring and methods
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorsChi YANG, Po-Yuan YEH, Che-Hsin LIN, Jen Chieh YU, Chung Wen LUO
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Abstract
A method includes: forming a mask layer on a semiconductor wafer; forming a tin droplet, including: supplying tin to a high-pressure reservoir from a low-pressure reservoir; monitoring a level of tin in the high-pressure reservoir by at least two electrodes attached to the high-pressure reservoir; in response to the level of the tin exceeding a threshold value, supplying the tin to a droplet generator from the high-pressure reservoir; forming the tin droplet by the droplet generator using the tin supplied from the high-pressure reservoir; generating light by the tin droplet; and patterning the mask layer by the light.
Claims20
A system, comprising:
- a high-pressure reservoir;
- a low-pressure reservoir configured to supply tin to the high pressure reservoir;
- a monitoring system including at least two electrodes coupled to the high-pressure reservoir and configured to monitor a level of tin in the high-pressure reservoir;
- and
- a droplet generator coupled to the high-pressure reservoir and configured to receive tin from the high-pressure reservoir and to generate a tin droplet.
A system, comprising:
- a high-pressure reservoir configured to hold tin;
- at least two electrodes coupled to the high-pressure reservoir;
- an LCR meter coupled to the two electrodes and configured to measure a capacitance associated with a level of tin in the high-pressure reservoir by applying a frequency-varying signal to the at least two electrodes;
- an analog-to-digital converter configured to generate a digital capacitance value based on the capacitance;
- and
- a processor coupled to the analog-to-digital converter configured to determine the level of tin based on the digital capacitance value.
A system comprising:
- a light source including:
- a droplet generator;
- a reservoir in fluid communication with the droplet generator;
- a monitoring assembly that, in operation, measures capacitance associated with level of tin in the reservoir, the monitoring assembly having at least two electrodes attached to an exterior of the reservoir;
- and
- a collector that, in operation, forms a beam of light based on a tin droplet formed by the droplet generator;
- and
- at least one reflector that, in operation, directs the beam of light toward a wafer stage.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.