{"id":560,"date":"2018-03-01T09:48:37","date_gmt":"2018-03-01T15:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/life.lithoguru.com\/?p=560"},"modified":"2018-03-01T09:48:37","modified_gmt":"2018-03-01T15:48:37","slug":"spie-advanced-lithography-symposium-2018-day-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/?p=560","title":{"rendered":"SPIE Advanced Lithography Symposium 2018 \u2013 day 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

The theme of this year\u2019s SPIE Advanced Lithography Symposium may be stochastics, but the buzzphrase of the year is definitely machine learning.\u00a0 I counted 11 papers with that phrase in the title, not to mention one short course, two full sessions on the topic, and numerous mentions in other talks trying to boost their \u201ccool\u201d factor.\u00a0 I am happy to say I did not attend any of these papers.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m just now learning about a technique that I believe TEL introduced last year to help with the edge placement error problem of complementary lithography (which I often misspell as \u201ccomplimentary\u201d, though this approach is anything but free).\u00a0 In complementary lithography long lines and spaces are patterned in one lithography\/etch step (SADP, for example) and then cut up into smaller segments using a second litho\/etch step.\u00a0 Sometimes the cuts are so challenging that two or more cut patterning steps are required to make one final pattern.\u00a0 This is where edge placement error (EPE, though more correctly described as edge-to-edge overlay error) comes in.\u00a0 Each cut patterning step will have an overlay error relative to the other cut patterning steps and relative to the lines and spaces being cut.\u00a0 If the cut’s overlay error perpendicular to the line is too large, it could accidentally cut a neighboring line.\u00a0 For this reason the cuts are made short, becoming almost contact holes.\u00a0 It would be easier to pattern the cuts if they were rectangular shaped (long dimension perpendicular to the lines), but then we have these potential overlay problems.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is where the \u201cmulti-color\u201d SAxP approach comes in.\u00a0 If you make every other line in your long line\/space pattern out of a different material, and those materials have different etch rates, it is possible to cut one line in an etch process without worrying whether the neighboring line is damaged by a misplaced cut pattern.\u00a0 Alas, this technique comes with increased processing steps (and cost) to create the \u201ccolors\u201d (the lines of different material), but it is probably worth it if it enables easier lithography of the cuts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wednesday was the day when life as a working stiff got in the way of pretending I was still a Gentleman Scientist.\u00a0 I missed a large chunk of papers in the middle of the day due to customer meetings.\u00a0 Time is the only truly limited resource.<\/span><\/p>\n

For me the highlight of the day, if not the week, was the special session on shot noise in the EUV conference.\u00a0 2018 is the 100-year anniversary of the seminal paper by Walter Schottky where he coined the phrase \u201cshot effect\u201d and described the statistical properties of a then newly discovered noise in low-current vacuum tubes due to the discrete nature of electrical change.\u00a0 Since shot noise has become an integral part of our community\u2019s vocabulary recently, I suggested to Ken Goldberg and Felix Nelson that they organize this special section in honor of this anniversary.\u00a0 I gave a tutorial talk on the history of shot noise, then Patrick Naulleau and Robert Brainard followed with two great talks on the topic.\u00a0 I loved the session, especially since I got to give a talk with no technical content (my favorite kind of talk).\u00a0 If you missed it, remember that SPIE is now recording the talks and will post them on the SPIE digital library in the coming weeks (for those authors who have given permission).<\/span><\/p>\n

The poster session afforded me the opportunity to engage in one of my favorite conference activities \u2013 talking with Vassilios Constantoudis.\u00a0 It was enlightening and educational as always.<\/span><\/p>\n

The late nights are starting to catch up with me, and Wednesday always makes things worse because of the KLA-Tencor party.\u00a0 There are always too many good friends there to catch up with.\u00a0 Still, I think I will be able to make an 8am talk on Thursday.\u00a0 I hope.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The theme of this year\u2019s SPIE Advanced Lithography Symposium may be stochastics, but the buzzphrase of the year is definitely machine learning.\u00a0 I counted 11 papers with that phrase in the title, not to mention one short course, two full sessions on the topic, and numerous mentions in other talks trying to boost their \u201ccool\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-microlithography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":561,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions\/561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}