ELECTRON-BEAM MICROCOLUMNS FOR LITHOGRAPHY AND RELATED APPLICATIONS

Lithography with an array of miniaturized scanning electron-beam colum ns presents one of the most promising high-throughput possibilities fo r fabrication of devices with feature sizes less than 100 nm. With sca nning electron beams no mask is required and the necessary resolution and alignment of overlay structures are realizable. With arrays of mic rocolumns, the lithography throughput of a single column can be multip lied. The approach can also be used for a number of lithography relate d applications such as metrology, inspection, testing, etc. We review the status of the microcolumn program and discuss opportunities and ch allenges of this approach to high-throughput nanolithography and relat ed applications. Special emphasis is given to lithography in the 100 n m regime. (C) 1996 American Vacuum Society.