High-NA EUV imaging: the quest for resolution, depth-of-focus, and productivity

To enable cost-effective shrink of future devices, a new High-NA EUV platform is being developed. The High-NA EUV scanner employs a novel projection optics design concept with 0.55NA that enables 8nm HP resolution and a high throughput. In this paper we will discuss the imaging performance and technology solutions to support our customers device roadmap. We will address various aspects of high-NA EUV imaging which involves balancing key metrics like contrast for LCDU, Depth-of-Focus for defect-free process window and dose-to-size for high productivity by means of source-mask and bias optimization, wafer CD retargeting, mask stack optimization and advanced scanner corrections.