Patent Abstract:
In an embodiment of the present invention, a device includes a first etched feature located in a critical dimension scanning electron microscope (CD-SEM) characterization location, the first etched feature having an upper section, a middle section, and a lower section wherein the middle section is severely shrunk relative to a corresponding middle section of a second etched feature having similar dimensions and composition that is not located in a CD-SEM characterization location. In another embodiment of the present invention, the middle section of the first etched feature has a shrinkage carryover exceeding a threshold. In still another embodiment of the present invention, the middle section of the first etched feature exhibits a line edge roughness.

Full Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS  
       [0001]     This application is a divisional of patent application Ser. No. 10/886,387, filed on Jul. 07, 2004, entitled “CHARACTERIZING RESIST LINE SHRINKAGE DUE TO CD-SEM INSPECTION”. 
     
    
     BACKGROUND  
       [0002]     Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEMs) may be used by semiconductor device manufacturers to measure the “critical dimension” (CD) of the sub-micron-sized circuits in a chip in order to monitor the accuracy of their manufacturing process. CD measurements are typically performed after photolithographic patterning and subsequent etch processing.  
         [0003]     An SEM uses a beam of electrons which is shaped and focused by magnetic and electrostatic “lenses” within an electron column. This beam causes secondary electrons and backscattered electrons to be released from the wafer surface. The SEM may then analyze the collected electrons (mainly the secondary electrons) to extract information, e.g., an image or measurement. The use of extremely precise and narrow electron beams may enable SEMs to image and measure features on a semiconductor wafer at a much higher resolution than images captured by optical microscopes.  
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0004]      FIG. 1  is a block diagram of a CD-SEM (Critical Dimension-Scanning Electron Microscope) system.  
         [0005]      FIG. 2A  is a plan view of a resist line before a CD-SEM measurement at an initial condition.  
         [0006]      FIG. 2B  is a plan view of the resist line of  FIG. 2A  after a CD-SEM measurement at the initial condition.  
         [0007]      FIG. 2C  is a plan view of a line in the substrate after etching the resist line of  FIG. 2B .  
         [0008]      FIG. 3A  is a sectional view of the resist line of  FIG. 2A .  
         [0009]      FIG. 3B  is a sectional view of the feature line of  FIG. 2C .  
         [0010]      FIG. 4  is a flowchart describing a technique for characterizing and reducing shrinkage carryover due to CD-SEM measurements.  
         [0011]      FIG. 5A  is a plan view of a resist line before a CD-SEM measurement at a modified condition.  
         [0012]      FIG. 5B  is a plan view of the resist line of  FIG. 5A  after a CD-SEM measurement at the modified condition.  
         [0013]      FIG. 5C  is a plan view of a line in the substrate after etching the resist line of  FIG. 5B .  
         [0014]      FIG. 6  is a plan view of a test region on a wafer according to an embodiment.  
         [0015]      FIG. 7  is a plan view of a test region on a wafer according to another embodiment.  
         [0016]      FIG. 8A  is an image of a resist line having severe shrinkage or slimming effect due to CD-SEM measurement.  
         [0017]      FIG. 8B  is an image of a post-etch line pattern showing shrinkage carryover or fingerprint corresponding the shrunk resist line of  FIG. 8A .  
         [0018]      FIG. 9  is an image of a post-etch line pattern produced using a technique for reducing shrinkage carryover due to CD-SEM measurement according to an embodiment. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0019]      FIG. 1  shows a CD-SEM (Critical Dimension-Scanning Electron Microscope) system  100  according to an embodiment. The system may include a CD-SEM  102 , a CD-SEM controller  104  to control the operation and operating parameters of the CD-SEM  102 , and an analysis module  106  to analyze the data collected by the CD-SEM.  
         [0020]     The CD-SEM system  100  may be used to measure the CD of features in devices on a wafer  108  in order to monitor the accuracy of the manufacturing process. The CD measurements may be performed after photolithographic patterning and subsequent etch processing, e.g., on the patterned resist layer prior to etching the substrate and also on the etched layer.  
         [0021]     The CD-SEM  102  produces a beam  110  of electrons, which is shaped and focused by magnetic and electrostatic “lenses” within an electron column. The beam causes secondary electrons and backscattered electrons  112  to be released from the wafer surface  114 , which may be collected by the CD-SEM. The analysis module  106  may include an imaging/measurement module  150  to generate an image or measurement from information obtained from the collected secondary electrons.  
         [0022]     The photoresist material used in a lithography process may be specific to the wavelength of light used in the lithography system. For example, 193 nm resist materials may be used in a lithography system using 193 nm UV light to expose the mask pattern onto the wafer. Next generation lithography system may use sub-193 nm wavelengths, e.g., 126 nm and 157 nm wavelengths generated by argon excimer and fluorine lasers, respectively. The sensitivity of these resist materials may be such that they are affected by the CD-SEM electron beam  110  used to measure features in the patterned photoresist layer.  
         [0023]      FIGS. 2A-2C  show the affect of the CD-SEM measurement on a line 200 of 193 nm resist.  FIG. 2A  shows the line before the measurement by the CD-SEM  102 .  FIG. 2B  shows that the middle of the line  202  is severely shrunk after measurement with the CD-SEM. This shrinkage may be, a physical effect such as a thermal effect, a chemical effect involving changes in bond structure and atomic group re-arrangement, or a combination of both. Because the line shrinkage occurs during measurement, determining the true CD line value from the obtained CD-SEM measurement may be extremely difficult.  
         [0024]      FIG. 3A  is a sectional view showing the resist line  200  prior to etching. During etching, the photoresist is removed, and the nitride layer  302  and a portion of the substrate  304  may be etched, thereby transferring the pattern in the photoresist layer to the semiconductor device layers (e.g., nitride and silicon substrate).  FIG. 2C  shows the result of the shrinkage in the photoresist line due to the CD-SEM measurement after etching. The shrunk section  202  in the resist line  200  may result in a thinned portion  204  in the etched line in the device layers. While CD measurements may typically be performed in the scribe line between die (non-device) regions on the wafer, in some cases, it may be necessary to perform CD measurements in the device. The shrinkage carryover, or “fingerprint”, from the CD-SEM measurement of the resist line may affect the performance of the device. Thus, CD-SEM measurements may not only be inaccurate, they may adversely affect yield.  
         [0025]     In an embodiment, the affects of CD-SEM measurements on the resist may be identified, and the operating parameters adjusted for a particular resist to avoid or significantly reduce shrinkage carryover in order to obtain more reliable CD measurements and avoid damage to the measured feature.  
         [0026]      FIG. 4  is a flowchart describing a technique for characterizing and reducing shrinkage carryover due to CD-SEM measurements. A resist line pattern may be printed on the wafer (block  402 ). A CD-SEM condition may then be selected (block  404 ). The condition may be a set of operating parameters. The operating parameters for a CD-SEM measurement may include, for example, beam voltage, probe current, dose of electron energy, focusing method, image scanning frames, etc. A resist line in the pattern may then be measured with the electron beam with the selected parameters (block  406 ). The measured resist line (and the rest of the patterned resist layer) may be etched to produce features in the wafer (block  408 ). The CD-SEM may then be used again to measure the etched line pattern to observe any shrinkage carryover at some fixed CD-SEM condition (block  410 ). Measurements may be taken of the measured location and an unmeasured location. The shrinkage carryover may be calculated by a computation module  152  from the two measurements. Also, the shrinkage carryover may manifest itself as a slimming of a resist line, or conversely, enlargement of negative feature, such as a hole (e.g., via) or space, by slimming of the resist edges surrounding the negative feature.  
         [0027]     The CD-SEM condition for the second measurement may not necessarily have to be the same as that in block  406  because the etched feature in the device layers may not be as susceptible to damage as the photoresist material. Consequently, the second measurement may be more accurate and non-damaging. The results of the measurement may then be analyzed by the analysis module  106  for evidence of shrinkage carryover (block  412 ). If no shrinkage carryover is discovered (or it falls below a threshold) (block  414 ), the condition used to measure in block  406  may be deemed satisfactory for the particular resist material under testing. This condition is shown in  FIGS. 5A-5C , where the unshrunk resist line  500  ( FIG. 5A ) is lightly shrunk  502  after CD measurement ( FIG. 5B ) and then etched, resulting in a line  504  with no (or below threshold) shrinkage carryover ( FIG. 5C ). However, if shrinkage carryover (over a certain threshold) is observed (block  416 ), a new condition may be selected by a selection module  154  in the analysis module  106 . The threshold may be based on an amount of shrinkage that is tolerable without causing device failure or malfunction, and in terms of change in width (CD) this may be about 1% of the feature size, depending on the processes and technologies. For example, a width change of 1/10 (or 10 nm) for a feature size of 100 nm may be unacceptable, whereas a width change of 1/50 (or 2% or 2 nm) of the feature size of 100 nm may be acceptable. On the other hand, for a larger feature size of 1000 nm, the shrinkage carryover may not tolerate a threshold value as small as 2% which is 20 nm. Thus the threshold may be selected based on the line (feature) dimension (CD) range. This is because shrinkage carryover may not be a linear function of feature size. For example, for a CD range of 100-200 nm features, the shrinkage carryover amount may be between 10% and 15%, corresponding to values of 10 nm to 30 nm. However, for larger CDs, e.g., in the 1000 nm (1.0 micron) range, a 30 nm shrinkage carryover is a much smaller value in percentage, e.g., about 3%.  
         [0028]     Another resist layer may be printed and blocks  404 - 412  repeated with new CD-SEM condition(s) until a satisfactory CD-SEM condition is determined for the resist material under consideration.  
         [0029]     In an embodiment, a technique for characterizing and reducing shrinkage carryover due to CD-SEM measurements may include performing multiple measurements using varying CD-SEM conditions, e.g., voltage, probe current, and dose, on different parts of the same feature, as shown in  FIG. 6 . For example, the measurement at the upper portion  602  of a line feature  600  may be taken at a voltage V 1 , a mid portion  604  at a voltage V 2 , and a lower portion  606  at a voltage V 3  (e.g., where V 1 &lt;V 2 &lt;V 3 ), while maintaining the probe current at a current I 1  for all three measurements. The three portions of the line feature may be completely separated or may have considerable overlaps. The resist shrinkage carryover may then be characterized as a function of beam voltage. Similarly, multiple measurements using varying probe currents (e.g., I 1 &lt;I 2 &lt;I 3 ) may be performed on different portions of another line feature  610 . Another set of measurements may be taken at varying dose of electron energy (e.g., D 1 &lt;D 2 &lt;D 3 ) of another line feature  620 . The three sets of measurements mentioned above can be performed on the same type of feature, such as a line, within the same exposure field.  
         [0030]     In an embodiment, measurements may be performed in a matrix of lithographic conditions, e.g., focus  702  and exposure  704 , on a wafer  700 , as shown in  FIG. 7 . The resist features may be printed under a range of focus and exposure settings, causing the resist profile to vary among the features in different fields. A characterization technique may be repeated in each field of interest for the characterization of the resist shrinkage carryover among different lithographic conditions.  
         [0031]     The test features shown in  FIGS. 6 and 7  may be provided in a scribe line of the wafer, or in the actual chips in unused regions  625  of one or more device layers. The features may be structurally similar to actual features in the chip (e.g., circuit components  630 ), but non-functional.  
         [0032]     In an embodiment, substantially identical test features may be used to test and compare different CD-SEM tools. The amount of shrinkage carryover caused by the different CD-SEM tools at the same conditions may be compared for selection of a CD-SEM tool for a particular implementation.  
         [0033]      FIG. 8A  shows shrinkage in a P8×5 193 nm resist line  800  due to measurement with an 800V CD-SEM beam voltage condition. The line includes an upper section  802 , a middle section  804 , and a lower section  806 . A measurement in the middle section  804  causes the line to shrink by over 10% in the middle section  804 . This corresponds to the slimming of the middle section  202  of the resist line shown in  FIG. 2B .  
         [0034]      FIG. 8B  shows the corresponding post-etch shrinkage fingerprint (i.e., shrinkage carryover) in the etched line  810 , with upper section  812 , middle section  814 , and lower section  816 . The magnitude of shrinkage carryover in the middle section  814  of the etched line in this case is greater than 15% compared with an unmeasured line. This corresponds to the thinned middle portion  204  of the etched line shown in  FIG. 2C . The middle section  814  of the etched line in this case also exhibits line edge roughness, which may also be induced by an SEM measurement in the resist measurement step. Consequently, line edge roughness effects may also be reduced using the techniques described above.  
         [0035]     In comparison, a resist line feature measured with a lower beam voltage (400V) determined using an embodiment of the CD-SEM measurement produced a post-etch line  900  with significantly lower shrinkage carryover (less than 1% of the feature size in P8×5 process), as shown in  FIG. 9 . In this case, there is little, if any, variation between the average width of the middle section  902  of the etched line  900  compared to the upper section  904  and lower section  906 .  
         [0036]     A number of embodiments have been described. Nevertheless, it will be understood that various modifications may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. For example, blocks in the flowcharts may be skipped or performed out of order and still produce desirable results. Accordingly, other embodiments are within the scope of the following claims.

Technology Classification (CPC): 6