Aberration tolerance for 130 nm lithography from viewpoint of process latitude

In this paper, aberration tolerance of a projection lens for 130nm patterni ng using ArF lithography is described. The influences of the three kinds of lens aberration were analyzed with aerial image simulation. Four mask type s were evaluated, each mask has a vertical and horizontal isolated line as well. as vertical and horizontal (V&H) dense lines. The common process lati tudes for four patterns were calculated, then the aberration tolerance was evaluated for each mask type. From the viewpoint of the process latitudes, the aberration tolerance was about 0.14 lambda in case of the Levenson-type mask for the vertical isolated line only. When the common process latitude for V&H isolated and dense lines was considered, the aberration tolerance decreased to 0.02 lambda in the case of spherical aberration. We also found that the influence of aberrations differed depending on the mask type. The refore, the mask types should be selected considering their characteristics with respect to the aberrations.