Patent ID: 8293460
Filing Date: 2012-10-23
Classification: G03F

Abstract:
1. A double exposure patterning method comprising: providing a substrate comprising a substrate layer under a photoresist layer; aligning, in a photolithography tool, a reticle to a feature in the substrate or substrate layer; exposing the photoresist layer to form a first pair of photoresist lines with a first critical dimension (CD) in a first dimension and with a first space there between, the first pair of photoresist lines having a first alignment relative to the substrate layer, and wherein the exposing further prints a third photoresist line having a third CD in the first dimension; offsetting the first alignment to have a second alignment by providing to the photolithography tool a predetermined positional offset relative to a position during the exposing, wherein the offsetting is in the first dimension, but not in a second dimension; re-exposing the photoresist layer with the reticle to bifurcate at least one of the first pair of photoresist lines with a second space to form a pitch-reduced, critical dimension (CD) reduced double pattern comprising at least two photoresist lines and two spaces, and wherein the re-exposing trims the third photoresist line to reduce the third CD without bifurcating the third photoresist line; and etching the substrate layer to have the pitch-reduced, CD reduced, double pattern.