Development of fast rigorous simulator for large-area EUV lithography simulation

In this paper, we first explain why the original pseudo-spectral time-domain (PSTD) formulation, as given in a well-know book on computational electromagnetics, is numerically unstable for curvilinear geometries. Then we explain how this problem can be fixed by a simple but crucial modification to the original formulation. The new formulation has allowed us to construct a very accurate and extremely fast rigorous simulator for DUV and EUV lithography. Benchmarks are presented to demonstrate the high accuracy and great speed of the new simulator. This brings us one step closer to achieving the goal full-chip, rigorous simulation for DUV and EUV lithography.