Progress in microprocessors

~ 10, 000 transistors Smallest feature ~ 5 microns

~ 2 cm

Manufacturing costs

An AMD microprocessor has 233 million transistors. Each transistor needs 3 electrical contacts. There are ~700 million contact holes per chip. In AMDs factories these are made at the rate of ~35 billion per second.

Drilling one hole every three seconds, it would take over 3000 years to drill 35 billion holes.

55 nm contacts using EUV lithography

Dense (aligned)

Dense (staggered)

Iso (aligned)

Iso (staggered)

EUV = Extreme Ultra Violet

EUV Lithography
Absorber

1. Si02 layer

5. acid

2. resist 6. solvent 3. mask

4. UV light

1.) Contact: Resist is in contact with the mask: 1:1 magnification Advantages: Inexpensive equipment ($~50,000-150,000), moderately high resolution (~0.5 um or better but limited by resist thickness- 0.1 um demonstrated) Disadvantages: Contact with the mask degrades the mask (pinholes and scratches are created on the metaloxidelayers of the mask, particles or dirt are directly imaged in the wafer, Wafer bowing or local loss of planarization results in non-uniform resolution due to mask-wafer gap variations., 2.) Proximity: Resist is almost, but not in contact with the mask: 1:1 magnification Advantages: Inexpensive equipment, low resolution (~1-2 um or slightly better) Disadvantages: Diffraction effects limit accuracy of pattern transfer. Less repeatable than contact 3.) Projection: Mask image is projected a distance from the mask and de-magnified to a smaller image: 1:4 1:10magnification Advantages: Can be very high resolution (~0.065 um or slightly better), No mask contact results in almost no mask wear (high production compatible), mask defects or particles on mask are reduced in size on the wafer. Disadvantages: Extremely expensive and complicated equipment, diffraction effects limit accuracy of pattern transfer.

1.) Resolution: How small of features can you make. (Current production state of the art is ~0.065 um) 2.) Registration: Can you repeatability align one layer to another. (~1/3 of resolution or 0.06 um) 3.) Throughput: Can these be done in a cost effective time. (50-100 wafers an hour, down to 1 chip per hour).

What is the shortest wavelength possible?

Photomasks today are made from fused silica. Fused silica has a number of advantageous properties. Chemical stability. Transparency for ultraviolet light. No intrinsic birefringence. A low coefficient of thermal expansion.

What is the shortest wavelength possible?

A low coefficient of thermal expansion. 0.5 ppm/oC. If a mask changes temperature by 0.1oC, then the distance between two features separated by 50 mm will change by 2.5 nm. This change in registration can be absorbed into overlay budgets. After reduction by 4.

What is the shortest wavelength possible?

The transparency of fused silica falls off sharply for wavelengths < 157 nm. An alternative material must be used. CaF2. The coefficient of thermal expansion of CaF2 is 19 ppm/oC. Versus 0.5 ppm/oC for fused silica. The 2.5 nm of mask registration error becomes nearly 100 nm.

What goes wrong at < 157 nm?

There will be no optical lithography for wavelengths < 193 nm.