Spectral analysis of the line-width and line-edge roughness transfer during self-aligned double patterning approach
Résumé
We report a 20 nm half-pitch self-aligned double patterning (SADPP) process based on a resist-core approach. Line/space 20/20 nm features in silicon are successfully obtained with CDvariation, LWR and LER of 0.7 nm, 2.4 nm and 2.3 nm respectively. The LWR and LER are characterized at each technological step of the process using a power spectral density fitting method, which allows a spectral analysis of the roughness and the determination of unbiased roughness values. Although the SADP concept generates two asymmetric populations of lines, the final LLWR and LER are similar. We show that this SADP process allows to decrease significantly the LWR and the LER of about 62% and 48% compared to the initial photoresist patterns. This study also demonstrates that SADP is a very powerful concept to decrease CD uniformity and LWR especially in its low-frequency components to reach sub-20 nm node requirements. However, LER low-frequency components are still high and remain a key issue tot address for an optimized integration.
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