The fast pace of MOSFET scaling is accelerating the introduction of smaller technology nodes to
extend CMOS beyond 20nm as required by Moore’s law. To meet these stringent requirements, the
industry is seeing an increase in the number of critical layers per reticle set as it move to lower
technology nodes especially in a high volume manufacturing operation. These requirements are
resulting in reticles with higher feature densities, smaller feature sizes and highly complex Optical
Proximity Correction (OPC), built with using new absorber and pellicle materials. These rapid
changes are leaving a gap in maintaining these reticles in a fab environment, for not only haze control
but also the functionality of the reticle. The industry standard of using wet techniques (which uses
aggressive chemicals, like SPM, and SC1) to repel reticles can result in damage to the sub‐resolution
assist features (SRAF’s), create changes to CD uniformity and have potential for creating defects that
require other means of removal or repair. Also, these wet cleaning methods in the fab environment
can create source for haze growth. Haze can be controlled by: 1) Chemical free (dry) reticle cleaning,
2) In‐line reticle inspection in fab, and 3) Manage the environment where reticles are stored. In this
paper we will discuss a dry technique (chemical free) to remove pellicle adhesive residue from
advanced optical reticles. Samsung Austin Semiconductors (SAS), jointly worked with Eco‐Snow
System (a division of RAVE N.P., Inc.) to evaluate the use of Dry Reactive Gas (DRG) technique to
remove pellicle adhesive residue on reticles. This technique can significantly reduce the impact to the
critical geometry in active array of the reticle, resulting in preserving the reticle performance level
seen at wafer level. The paper will discuss results on the viability of this technique used on advanced
reticles.
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