Mr. Eric R. Miller Profile

Eric R. Miller

at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Ctr.

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Author

Publications (11)

Proceedings Article | 10 April 2024 Presentation + Paper

EUV patterned gate variation reduction in next generation transistor architectures

Gopal Sankar Kenath, Martin Burkhardt, Nikhil Jain, Anna Lin, Jennifer Church, Gen Tsutsui, Stephanie Reynoso, Xuan Liu, Chris Sheraw, Pietro Montanini, Eric Miller, Indira Seshadri, Luciana Meli, Nelson Felix

Proceedings Volume 12953, 1295305 (2024) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3012023

KEYWORDS: Line width roughness, Light sources and illumination, Nanoimprint lithography, Optical lithography, Line edge roughness, Etching, Transistors, Extreme ultraviolet, Reactive ion etching, Extreme ultraviolet lithography

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Proceedings Article | 13 June 2022 Presentation

Etch and patterning development for 2nm node nanosheet devices

Eric Miller, Indira Seshadri, Tsung-Sheng Kang, Dominik Metzler, Joe Lee, Stuart Sieg, Sebastian Engelmann, Jeff Shearer, John Arnold, Nelson Felix

Proceedings Volume PC12056, PC120560A (2022) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2614316

KEYWORDS: Optical lithography, Etching, Plasma etching, Plasma, Nanotechnology, Extreme ultraviolet, Line width roughness, Ions, Fin field effect transistors, Extreme ultraviolet lithography

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Proceedings Article | 26 February 2021 Presentation + Paper

Contact local CD uniformity optimization through etch shrink

Eric Miller, Junling Sun, Jennifer Church, Xinghua Sun, Angelique Raley

Proceedings Volume 11615, 116150A (2021) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2583666

KEYWORDS: Etching, Critical dimension metrology, Optical lithography, Back end of line, Semiconducting wafers, Logic, Lithography, Dielectrics

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Proceedings Article | 22 February 2021 Presentation

Quasi-atomic layer etching of Si and nitride hard mask with Cl2 based chemistry

Tao Li, Stefan Schmitz, Phil Friddle, Samantha Tan, Wenbing Yang, Indira Seshadri

Proceedings Volume 11615, 116150E (2021) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2583647

KEYWORDS: Etching, Silicon, Ions, Chemistry, Control systems, Plasma, Optical lithography, Modulation, Manufacturing, Chlorine

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Proceedings Article | 22 February 2021 Presentation

Performance of stacked nanosheet gate all around FET’s with EUV patterned gate and sheets

Indira Seshadri, Jennifer Church, Prateek Hundekar, Mary Breton, Jingyun Zhang, Eric Miller, Andrew Greene, Julien Frougier, Chris Waskiewicz, Tao Li, Tsung-Sheng Kang, Daniel Dechene, Carl Radens, Stuart Sieg, Veeraraghavan Basker, Nelson Felix, Chris Mack

Proceedings Volume 11609, 116090S (2021) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2583897

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SPIE Journal Paper | 1 July 2020 Open Access

Fundamental characterization of stochastic variation for improved single-expose extreme ultraviolet patterning at aggressive pitch

Jennifer Church, Luciana Meli, Jing Guo, Martin Burkhardt, Chris Mack, Anuja De Silva, Karen Petrillo, Mary Breton, Ravi Bonam, Romain Lallement, Eric Miller, Brad Austin, Shravan Matham, Nelson Felix

JM3, Vol. 19, Issue 03, 034001, (July 2020) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.10.1117/1.JMM.19.3.034001

KEYWORDS: Stochastic processes, Fiber optic illuminators, Line edge roughness, Critical dimension metrology, Defect inspection, Extreme ultraviolet, Inspection, Optical lithography, Yield improvement

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Proceedings Article | 4 May 2020 Presentation + Paper

Measuring local CD uniformity in EUV vias with scatterometry and machine learning

Dexin Kong, Daniel Schmidt, Jennifer Church, Chi-Chun Liu, Mary Breton, Cody Murray, Eric Miller, Luciana Meli, John Sporre, Nelson Felix, Ishtiaq Ahsan, Aron Cepler, Marjorie Cheng, Roy Koret, Igor Turovets

Proceedings Volume 11325, 113251I (2020) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2551498

KEYWORDS: Scatterometry, Machine learning, Semiconducting wafers, Critical dimension metrology, Etching, Photoresist materials, Lithography, Metrology, Scatter measurement, Data modeling

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Proceedings Article | 25 March 2020 Presentation

A comparative analysis of EUV sheet and gate patterning for beyond 7nm gate all around stacked nanosheet FET’s (Conference Presentation)

Indira Seshadri, Praveen Joseph, Stuart Sieg, Tao Li, Wenyu Xu, Eric Miller, Dan Dechene, Andrew Greene, Carl Radens, Jingyun Zhang, Yann Mignot, Pietro Montanini, Mary Breton, Veeraraghavan Basker, Nelson Felix

Proceedings Volume 11328, 113280B (2020) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2552159

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Proceedings Article | 23 March 2020 Presentation + Paper

Fundamental characterization of stochastic variation for improved single-expose EUV patterning at aggressive pitch

Jennifer Church, Luciana Meli, Jing Guo, Martin Burkhardt, Chris Mack, Anuja DeSilva, Karen Petrillo, Mary Breton, Ravi Bonam, Romain Lallement, Eric Miller, Brad Austin, Shravan Matham, Nelson Felix

Proceedings Volume 11323, 113230O (2020) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2551487

KEYWORDS: Stochastic processes, Line edge roughness, Inspection, Defect inspection, Critical dimension metrology, Extreme ultraviolet, Optical lithography, Etching, Bridges

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Proceedings Article | 30 March 2016 Paper

Advanced in-line metrology strategy for self-aligned quadruple patterning

Robin Chao, Mary Breton, Benoit L'herron, Brock Mendoza, Raja Muthinti, Florence Nelson, Abraham De La Pena, Fee li Le, Eric Miller, Stuart Sieg, James Demarest, Peter Gin, Matthew Wormington, Aron Cepler, Cornel Bozdog, Matthew Sendelbach, Shay Wolfling, Tom Cardinal, Sivananda Kanakasabapathy, John Gaudiello, Nelson Felix

Proceedings Volume 9778, 977813 (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2220601

KEYWORDS: Critical dimension metrology, Metrology, Transmission electron microscopy, Optical lithography, Semiconducting wafers, Etching, Process control, Scatterometry, Reactive ion etching, Diffractive optical elements

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Self-Aligned Quadruple Patterning (SAQP) is a promising technique extending the 193-nm lithography to manufacture structures that are 20nm half pitch or smaller. This process adopts multiple sidewall spacer image transfers to split a rather relaxed design into a quarter of its original pitch. Due to the number of multiple process steps required for the pitch splitting in SAQP, the process error propagates through each deposition and etch, and accumulates at the final step into structure variations, such as pitch walk and poor critical dimension uniformity (CDU). They can further affect the downstream processes and lower the yield. The impact of this error propagation becomes significant for advanced technology nodes when the process specifications of device design CD requirements are at nanometer scale. Therefore, semiconductor manufacturing demands strict in-line process control to ensure a high process yield and improved performance, which must rely on precise measurements to enable corrective actions and quick decision making for process development. This work aims to provide a comprehensive metrology solution for SAQP.

During SAQP process development, the challenges in conventional in-line metrology techniques start to surface. For instance, critical-dimension scanning electron microscopy (CDSEM) is commonly the first choice for CD and pitch variation control. However, it is found that the high aspect ratio at mandrel level processes and the trench variations after etch prevent the tool from extracting the true bottom edges of the structure in order to report the position shift. On the other hand, while the complex shape and variations can be captured with scatterometry, or optical CD (OCD), the asymmetric features, such as pitch walk, show low sensitivity with strong correlations in scatterometry. X-ray diffraction (XRD) is known to provide useful direct measurements of the pitch walk in crystalline arrays, yet the data analysis is influenced by the incoming geometry and must be used carefully.

A successful implementation of SAQP process control for yield improvement requires the metrology issues to be addressed. By optimizing the measurement parameters and beam configurations, CDSEM measurements distinguish each of the spaces corresponding to the upstream mandrel processes and report their CDs separately to feed back to the process team for the next development cycle. We also utilize the unique capability in scatterometry to measure the structure details in-line and implement a “predictive” process control, which shows a good correlation between the “predictive” measurement and the cross-sections from our design of experiments (DOE). The ability to measure the pitch walk in scatterometry was also demonstrated. This work also explored the frontier of in-line XRD capability by enabling an automatic RSM fitting on tool to output pitch walk values. With these advances in metrology development, we are able to demonstrate the impacts of in-line monitoring in the SAQP process, to shorten the patterning development learning cycle to improve the yield.

Proceedings Article | 18 March 2016 Paper

EUV patterning successes and frontiers

Nelson Felix, Dan Corliss, Karen Petrillo, Nicole Saulnier, Yongan Xu, Luciana Meli, Hao Tang, Anuja De Silva, Bassem Hamieh, Martin Burkhardt, Yann Mignot, Richard Johnson, Chris Robinson, Mary Breton, Indira Seshadri, Derren Dunn, Stuart Sieg, Eric Miller, Genevieve Beique, Andre Labonte, Lei Sun, Geng Han, Erik Verduijn, Eunshoo Han, Bong Cheol Kim, Jongsu Kim, Koichi Hontake, Lior Huli, Corey Lemley, Dave Hetzer, Shinichiro Kawakami, Koichi Matsunaga

Proceedings Volume 9776, 97761O (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2219894

KEYWORDS: Extreme ultraviolet, Optical lithography, Lithography, Extreme ultraviolet lithography, Oxides, Neodymium, Ions, Etching

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Showing 5 of 11 publications

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