Three-Dimensional Photolithography Simulation

Abstract. - An overall three-dimensional photolithography simulator is presented, which has been developed for workstation based application. The simulator consists of three modules according to the fundamental processes of photolithography, namely imaging, exposure/bleaching and development. General illumination forms are taken into account. The nonlinear bleaching reaction of the photoresist is considered and electromagnetic light-scattering due to a nonplanar topography is treated by solving repeatedly the Maxwell equations within an inhomogeneous medium. A novel extension of the two-dimensional differential method into the third dimension is presented and a numerically efficient implementation for exposure simulation under partial coherent illumination is described. The development process is simulated with a cellular based surface advancement algorithm.

Figure 1: Aerial image of a photomask carrying the pattern .

• 1 Introduction
• 2 Imaging Simulation
• 3 Exposure/Bleaching Simulation
  • 3.1 Simulation Model
  • 3.2 Numerical Solution of the Maxwell Equations
• 4 Development Simulation
• 5 Simulation of Contact Hole Printing
• 6 Conclusion
• Acknowledgement
• References