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Skeleton-based OPC application for

DSA full chip mask correction

L. Schneider, V. Farys, E. Serret, C. Fenouillet-Beranger

L. Schneider, V. Farys, E. Serret, C. Fenouillet-Beranger, "Skeleton-based

OPC application for DSA full chip mask correction," Proc. SPIE 9661, 31st
European Mask and Lithography Conference, 966106 (4 September 2015);
doi: 10.1117/12.2195171

Event: 31st European Mask and Lithography Conference, 2015, Eindhoven,

Netherlands

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 Skeleton – Based OPC Application for DSA full chip mask correction
L. Schneidera,b, V. Farysa, E. Serreta, C. Fenouillet-Berangerb
a
STMicroelectronics, 850 rue Jean Monnet. 38926 Crolles Cedex. France;
b
CEA, LETI, Minatec Campus, 17 rue des martyrs, 38054 Grenoble France Cedex 9

ABSTRACT

Recent industrial results around directed self-assembly (DSA) of block copolymers (BCP) have demonstrated the high
potential of this technique [1-2]. The main advantage being cost reduction thanks to a reduced number of lithographic
steps. Meanwhile, the associated correction for mask creation must account for the introduction of this new technique,
maintaining a high level of accuracy and reliability. In order to create VIA (Vertical Interconnect Layer) layer,
graphoepitaxy DSA can be used. The technique relies on the creation of a confinement guides where the BCP can
separate into distinct regions and resulting patterns are etched in order to obtain an ordered series of VIA contact. The
printing of the guiding pattern requires the use of classical lithography. Optical proximity correction (OPC) is applied to
obtain the best suited guiding pattern allowing to match a specific design target.
In this study, an original approach for DSA full chip mask optical proximity correction based on a skeleton
representation of a guiding pattern is proposed. The cost function for an OPC process is based on minimizing the Central
Placement Error (CPE), defined as the difference between an ideal skeleton target and a generated skeleton from a
guiding contour. The high performance of this approach for DSA OPC full chip correction and its ability to minimize
variability error on via placement is demonstrated and reinforced by the comparison with a rigorous model. Finally this
Skeleton approach is highlighted as an appropriate tool for Design rules definition.
Keywords: DSA, OPC, Contact shrink, Central Placement Error, Design, Grapho-epitaxy, model

1. INTRODUCTION
Directed Self Assembly (DSA) of Block Copolymer (BCP) has generated extensive interest for its ability to print
irregularly positioned contact holes below standard lithographic resolution. Indeed, using DSA leads to cost reduction
because it requires less number of masks to print the VIA layer and allows high volume manufacturing [1-3]. The DSA
process mainly relies on 3 steps. The first one consists in printing guiding patterns on a hardmask with conventional
lithography. Then the Block Copolymer, commonly PS-b-PMMA, is deposited and annealed. This step leads to phase
segregation between the 2 components of the BCP. Finally PMMA domains are etched leading to the formation of a
dense array of contact holes [3-4]. The complete process flow scheme is illustrated on figure 1.
The topographical guide controls the self-assembly of the BCP and one can find the most appropriate shape to direct the
PMMA into the desired location. In the case of a cylindrical DSA pattern, number and placement of the cylinders inside
the pattern can be controlled by the confinement wells. Computational studies based on physical modeling have been
widely used to obtain the best suited guiding pattern [5-9]. However, predicting ideal guiding patterns in order to match a
designed grid of VIAs from rigorous modeling is a computationally extensive task and cannot be performed on a Full
chip mask.
In this article, an original approach based on a topological skeleton is presented. It enables the correction of large scale
layouts and provides reliable results. The paper is organized as follows. Section 1 focuses on the contact layer design. It

PMMA

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Figure 1. Schematic of the DSA flow scheme for graphoepitaxy. The hardmask is composed of Spin On Carbon (SOC) and
Spin On Glass (SOG).

31st European Mask and Lithography Conference, edited by Uwe F.W. Behringer, Jo Finders, Proc. of SPIE Vol. 9661,
966106 · © 2015 SPIE · CCC code: 0277-786X/15/$18 · doi: 10.1117/12.2195171

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 is shown that the variability induced by 2D design grid leads to significant variability in contact hole placement. Then,
the second section is devoted to the topological skeleton: how it is calculated and what is the accuracy of this placement
estimator. Finally the third and last section presents an OPC based on a topological skeleton. The viability of this
approach is reinforced by the comparison with standard OPC.

2. DESIGN STRATEGY FOR CONTACT LAYER

In order to meet yield and reliability requirements, the contact hole placement error must remain under 3 nm. In addition,
recent studies related to DSA have shown a direct correlation between guiding pattern variability and contact hole
placement error. The main contributions to guiding pattern variability have been identified as Line Edge Roughness and
CD uniformity [6], [10].
This section highlights that 2D design style for metal lines is not suitable for contact layer printing with DSA. Then, the
great interest of 1D design will be presented based on the analysis of a Placed & Routed (P&R) standard cell block.

Grouping strategy for contact layer and application to 2D design style for metal lines
From a designed contact layer, it is necessary to construct the associated guiding pattern layer that allows the formation
of properly placed contact holes. Hence, a grouping strategy for VIA must be employed to generate the guiding pattern
layer. In this study, the following grouping strategy has been used: if a VIA has its surrounding environment distance
bove the lithographic resolution, then the VIA is considered as isolated and contact shrink is used. A circle shape is used
as a guiding pattern. If a group of VIAs have their center-to-center distances in the range of both the lithographic
resolution and the block copolymer naturel length, contact multiplication strategy is used: they are gathered in a single
guiding pattern. If the distance between VIAs are below the BCP length, other techniques such as SADP (Self Aligned
Double Patterning) must be employed. The overall strategy schemes can be seen in figure 2.

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Elltogivirk
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Figure 2. Merging strategy regarding VIA pitch

In 2D design, metal lines from a layer can be both vertical and horizontal with variable pitch. The main advantages of
such 2D designs are a high level of freedom for designer, possibility to have multiple pin access and via redundancy. The
outcome being loss in yield and process window.
From a 14 nm standard cell block shrink down to 10 nm, there is a continuous range of VIA pitch starting from 66 nm up
to 100 nm. In figure 3(a), the number of VIA with its closest center-to-center neighbor distance is reported for a block
size of 130 µm x 80 µm According to the grouping strategy and assuming that the lithographic resolution is about 90 nm,
contact multiplication occurs from 66 to 90 nm. The variability associated with the printing of these guiding patterns is
too strong and OPC cannot support all these configurations.
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(a) 14 nm Standard cell block shrink down to 10 nm (b) 10 nm P&R Standard cell block
Figure 3. Pitch configuration count

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 rfi`c'FF?c`.rz; =í`4,1?,s,.s

Figure 4. Library of guiding patterns illustrating the most representative templates. Mx is represented in blue lines and
Mx+1 in green lines. VIAs and associated guiding patterns are in red and blue respectively.
1D gridded design style, pattern library
In order to limit the number of possible guiding patterns for contact multiplication, 1D gridded design style for metal
lines is an appropriate candidate [11-13]. The main interest being the .In our specific design, the metal lines below the
VIA contact layer (Mx) are usually horizontals and the metal lines above (Mx+1) are verticals. Thus, assuming a metal
lines pitch of 48 nm for both levels, the VIAs contact holes are placed along a square grid. In a Placed & Routed (P&R)
standard cell block from a 10 nm node, only 1 pitch for contact multiplication has to be handled as depicted in figure
3(b), thus producing 2 contacts along a square diagonal (figure 4). From this P&R standard cell block it has been
observed that more than 99% of the generated cluster of VIAs can be generated from 4 primitive forms, depicted in
figure 4.
3. TOPOLOGICAL SKELETON
Patterns depicted in figure 4 are strongly confined and based on experiments, one can observe that the contact holes are
placed along the topological skeleton of the template, as shown in figure 5. Thus it is possible to predict the placement of
VIAs according to this estimator.
The first paragraph of this section will focus on the calculation method to retrieve skeleton from an initial shape. The
second paragraph concerned the validity of the skeleton regarding the experiment. Finally, in the third paragraph,
rigorous modeling will be used to show the accuracy of this placement estimator coupled with its range of validity.
.

---------
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Figure 5. SEM Images of a guiding pattern with removed PMMA parts.

Calculation of the skeleton
\

A topological skeleton is a thin, centered subset of an object that is topologically equivalent to the shape. This
representation is widely used for shape recognition and is the basis of many algorithms. A thorough review of calculation
methods can be found in [14]. In this study, an easily implemented method based on minimum distance mapping with
low computational cost has been used. The method relies on the minimal distance mapping from the boundary points of
the shape [15]. In this approach, the skeleton correspond to the local minimum of the minimum distance mapping.
Therefore the following procedure has been implemented:
1. For every points inside the guiding pattern, calculation of the minimum distance to the pattern boundaries.
2. Gradient calculation of the minimum distance mapping.
3. Local minimum are retrieved thanks to a threshold function.

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 0. Shape contour extraction 1. Minimum distance calculation 2. Gradient of minimum distance 3. Threshold on gradient
Figure 6. Skeleton calculation performed with minimum distance method.
We assume that the PMMA domain centers are placed on the skeleton. Although this seems a reasonable statement, it
has been checked on various configurations, and especially on those depicted in figure 4. These results are presented in
the following paragraph
Comparison of the skeleton estimator with experiments
A tool has been developed in order to analyze the SEM images. It works as follows: both the guiding pattern and PMMA
removed domains are retrieved thanks to an adaptive threshold. The topological skeleton is calculated according to the
previous method. In addition the PMMA domain centers are obtained thanks to an ellipse fitting as described in [16].
Finally, the distances between the centers and the skeleton are extracted. Results can be seen in figure 7.
The average center placement error is 0.6 ± 0.4 nm which is below the SEM resolution. Although this result is good, the
number of samples to make a conclusive statement about the skeleton accuracy is not sufficient. Thus numerical
simulation has been performed to complete this study.
In order to check the accuracy of the skeleton regarding the guiding patterns in the library, a set of test structures has
been created. The objective is to determine the range of validity for the skeleton representation for this template library.
The test structures used for the rigorous simulation are shown in the next paragraph. Finally, the last paragraph will be
dedicated to the result of the simulation.

Figure 7. SEM images. Guiding patterns and PMMA domains are extracted using a threshold function. Center of PMMA
domains are retrieved thanks to an ellipse fitting [16]. Skeleton is also calculated and compared to the domain centers.
The average distance between PMMA domain centers and skeleton is 0.6 nm.
Test structures for rigorous modeling
Test structures have been designed to study the printing variability of a central guiding pattern with surrounding
templates. An example of structure is depicted in figure 8. Assuming that the library is composed of 8 guiding patterns
(the 4 primitive patterns depicted in figure 4 with their respective rotations. Contact shrink is not considered), the total
number of possibilities is 89.
An environment is composed of a central position (represented in blue in figures 8(a) and 9) and adjacent locations
(represented in yellow). The blue part is associated to the guiding pattern i and the yellow with the j one. Using this
library, every combination (i,j) can be created and in the particular case depicted in figure 8(a). Thus, the total number of
configurations for 1 environment is 64. 2 of these possible configurations are illustrated in figures 8(b) and 8(c).

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 (a) (b) (c)
Figure 8. Example of an environment. (a) The central template indices is i and adjacent templates are j. (b) and (c) are
examples of a particular combination of the environment shown in (a).
Finally, 17 environments have been created and are represented in figure 9. A total of 1088 configurations has thus been
created. In the next paragraph, a subset of structures have been chosen among those configurations in order to perform
rigorous simulations. These structures are representative of a 10 nm P&R standard cell block.
Comparison with rigorous physical model
In this study a simplified model, called the Otha-Kawasaki (OK) model was employed. A complete description of the
numerical implementation can be found in [17]. The model was first presented in [18]. In this study, a mixing fraction f
of 0.3 is assumed for the copolymer chain. The OK model has generated great interest as it reproduces accurately the
phase segregation between the two components of the resist. To compare results between the OK model and skeleton
representation we used the following procedure:
• Calculation of the guiding pattern skeleton thanks to the previously described methods.
• OK model is computed and the PMMA domain centers are retrieved with an ellipse fitting on the PMMA
contours.
• For every center found, the minimum distance to the skeleton is calculated.
An illustration of the resulting procedure is shown in figure 10 for 3 different guiding patterns.
For a BCP with a natural periodicity of 40 nm, the average distance between the skeleton and PMMA domain center is
1.9 nm, which is a good value. As expected, the skeleton is a well suited representation for confined patterns. However,
some configurations have a significant error value above 2 nm. This is ascribed to the non-commensurability of the
guiding pattern with the copolymer natural periodicity along the normal axis of the skeleton. If we assume that along the
normal axis the distance must remain under the commensurability of the natural period, the error decreases significantly.
As shown in figure 10, a clear drop in the CPE can be observed with an average error of 0.9 nm. Thus, the more
constrained the BCP is, the better the estimation.

Figure 9. A set of created environments. In blue: the central guiding pattern. In yellow: adjacent guiding patterns. Every
combination is created using the specific library described in figure 8.

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 Figure 10. Comparison between OK model and skeleton representation. PMMA simulated domain are in red and the
initial guiding patterns are in green.
On each structure, the maximum center placement distance from the skeleton is reported depending on the maximum
distance along the normal axis. The result is shown in figure 12 for the 2 BCPs. In a range of 20 to 26 nm, the placement
prediction is accurate with an average error reduced down to 0.6 nm. Beyond, the skeleton representation is no longer
suitable for predicting the center position.
Thus, the skeleton has been shown to be an accurate estimator for VIA contact hole placement assuming a
commensurability criterion. In the next section an OPC using the topological skeleton is presented.
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Figure 11. Histogram of the distance between PMMA domain center and skeleton.

20
18
16
14
12
10
8

Maximum distance along skeleton normal axis (nm)

Figure 12. Effect of the commensurability along the normal axis of the skeleton on the center placement error. The red
line show the limit of validity of the skeleton estimation. Below, the skeleton is precise (average error: 0.6 nm).

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 4. SKELETON BASED OPC
Presentation of the skeleton based OPC (SkBOPC)
As shown in the previous paragraph, the topological skeleton is a good estimator for VIA placement under certain
minimally restrictive conditions. The original OPC mainly relies on the minimization of the difference between the VIA
center and the skeleton of the simulated contour of the guiding pattern.
In this approach, contour edges move according to the distance between the design center and an ideal skeleton. Firstly,
according to design, an ideal skeleton is settled: every VIA center is placed along this “design” skeleton. It corresponds
to the black line in figure 13(a). A fragmentation of the initial shape is performed and each fragment is associated to a
portion of the ideal skeleton (the blue dotted line shows the interpolation into the ideal skeleton).
Then, optical simulations are performed in order to obtain the guiding pattern. The simulated skeleton is retrieved as
depicted in figure 13(b). Each point of the skeleton is associated with a portion of the initial shape. In the particular case
depicted in figure 13, the point Ki (from figure 13(b)) is associated with 2 edge fragments, P and Q (from figure 13(a)).

Initial shape Initial contour Final contour

Target skeleton Initial skeleton Final skeleton

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 13. Flow of a Skeleton-based OPC. (a) An initial shape is generated according to the grouping strategy. The
corresponding ideal skeleton is shown in black and the shape is projected onto this skeleton (b) Optical simulation is
performed to retrieve the guiding pattern and the corresponding simulated skeleton. Finally edges are moved in order to
minimize the distance between the simulated and the ideal skeleton. The point I(Ki) corresponds to the projection of Ki
onto the ideal skeleton. (c) Result after 6 iterations. The simulated skeleton match with the ideal target.

The set Λ(Q) is defined as the points Ki of the simulated skeleton associated with the edge fragment Q. Along the edge
fragment Q, the average distance between ideal and simulated skeleton is calculated using the following formula :
1
E(Q) = ∑ K i I (K i ) .
card (Λ (Q )) Ki∈Λ (Q )
(1)

The point I(Ki) is defined as the interpolate point of Ki onto the ideal skeleton. Finally the edge Q is moved
proportionally to the average error E(Q).
Several iterations are necessary until the distance between the ideal and simulated skeleton reaches a threshold. The
resulting guiding pattern is presented in figure 13(c). In the next paragraph, the Skeleton Based OPC is compared with a
standard OPC on our chosen the test structures

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 Results
The Skeleton Based OPC (SkBOPC) is performed on the 1088 configurations presented in section 3. In order to analyze
the result, the number of structure that have a CPE (Center Placement Error, distance between the designed VIA and the
skeleton) above a threshold have been reported on figure 14. In the case of triangle guiding pattern (figure 14(a)), a clear
drop in the number of errors is observed when using the SkBOPC compared to a standard OPC.
For contact multiplication x2 and x3, the standard OPC have a better convergence. It is ascribe to the fact that in the
current SkBOPC, line-end are not handle (blue dashed line in figure 14(a)). Thus if the simulated skeleton is smaller than
the ideal skeleton, the SkBOPC cannot rectify the default. It is currently under study.
120

100 Skeleton 0 P
Standard OPC
80

60
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0
3 7 9 11 13 15
Threshold detection CPE (nm)
(a) Triangle x3
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(b) Contact multiplication x2

(c) Contact multiplication x3

Figure 14. Comparison between Skeleton based OPC and standard OPC. Test structures presented in section 3 were
used.

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 Conclusion
The original and innovative skeleton based OPC presented in this paper relies essentially on the empirical assumption
that the PMMA domain centers are placed along the average path of the guiding pattern, an assumption which is
justifiable in the case of a very confined system as highlighted by rigorous modeling. Such systems demonstrate a
particular interest due to their ability to generate the most reliable VIA prints with less time consuming.
When considering a VIA layer, traditional OPC fails to correctly place the VIA centers. It has been shown in this study
that using a skeleton based OPC greatly improves the printability of the VIA layer.
It must be noted that the skeleton estimation for PMMA domain centers has certain limits. However, the skeleton based
correction method presents an innovative solution in overcoming the difficulty of the treatment of DSA in the
microelectronic industry. More studies will be performed in the future to achieve a better estimation of the PMMA
domain centers.

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