Patent ID: 6872497

Claim:
A method of making a reflective lithography mask comprising: forming a reflective coating that is reflective to lithography radiation on a top surface of a substrate that is substantially absorbent to EUV lithography radiation; forming a masking material over the reflective coating; patterning the masking material so as to correspond to a desired circuit layout; inspecting the masking material for defects therein by shining a light or a beam of energetic particles at the mask, detecting an insufficient amount of masking material where an excess amount of particles are scattered from or an excess amount of light is reflected from the reflective coating at locations that are to be covered with masking material, and detecting unwanted masking material where an insufficient amount of particles are scattered from or an insufficient amount of light is reflected from the reflective coating at locations that are not to be covered with masking material; rectifying defects found in the masking material; patterning the reflective coating so as to correspond to the desired circuit layout with the patterned masking material serving as a mask after the defects are rectified; and removing the masking material.