A composite model for LELE process

作者：Devin Sima, Wei Li, YingXiong Guo, Tzung-Hua Ying, Yanbin Gong, Fengsheng Zhao, Shengrui Zhang, Chuanmin Hu · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1117/12.3092179 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：Advancements in Photolithography Techniques、Nanofabrication and Lithography Techniques、Optical Coatings and Gratings

Double patterning technology plays an increasingly important role in the DUV process, especially the reduction of nodes makes it indispensable. Among various kinds of double patterning techniques, lithography-etch-lithography-etch (LELE) double patterning is chosen for printing complex foundry circuit designs. For this reason, etch process has become even more critical to critical dimensions (CD) control in patterning and harder to be simulated, because of the prior etch process influences the profile of the final etched pattern. In this paper, we established a model to simulate the changes of the process contour at each step in LELE process. This combined model was built with after develop inspection (ADI) and after etch inspection (AEI) contours. It can not only be used for optical proximity correction (OPC), but also predict the etch bias of different types of pattern (especially 2D patterns). Furthermore, LELE model simulation can more easily detect ADI and AEI hotspots through lithography rule check (LRC) and etch rule check (ERC).