EUV lithography is rapidly being pushed to its resolution limit, where tradeoffs are heightened between resolution, throughput, and stochastics. Mitigation strategies include attenuated phase shift masks (aPSMs) and thinner high-k absorbers. Furthermore, multilayer bandwidth and phase shift may need to be reassessed. All these improvements relate to mask 3D effects (M3D), arising from several causes: First, phase shift vs pitch, which sets the aPSM target phase shift around 1.2pi instead of pi. Second, absorber thickness effects which directly relate to the promise of high-k absorbers. And third, multilayer effects like bandwidth and phase vs angle. We propose to quantify these effects in simulation for different EUV scanner generations (0.33 NA, high-NA, or hyper-NA). Finally, we will propose measuring these effects with the EUV Tech ENK (EUV n/k tool) using actinic scatterometry. The complexity of M3D suggests that new metrics of multilayer and absorber performance beyond reflectivity will need to be considered. Actinic scatterometry provides a promising route to measuring M3D due to its sensitivity to wavelength, angle, and feature size.
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