On the road to automated production workflows in the back end of line

The technical roadmap adopted by the semiconductor industry drives mask shops to embrace advanced solutions toovercome challenges inherent to smaller technology nodes while increasing reliability and turnaround time (TAT). It isobserved that the TAT is increasing at a rapid rate for each new ground rule [1, 2]. At the same time, productivity andquality must be ensured to deliver the perfect mask to the customer. These challenges require optimization of overallmanufacturing flows and individual steps, which can be addressed and improved via smart automation [2].

Ideally, remote monitoring, controlling and adjusting key aspects of the production would improve labor efficiency andenhance productivity. It would require collecting and analyzing all available process data to facilitate or even automatedecision-making steps. In mask shops, numerous areas of the back end of line (BEOL) workflow have room forimprovement in regards to defect disposition, reducing human errors, standardizing recipe generation, data analysis andaccessibility to useful and centralized information to support certain approaches such as repair. Adapting these aspectsallows mask manufacturers to control and even predict the TAT that would lead to an optimized process of record.

Keywords: AIMS, MeRiT, review, repair, SEM, automation, FAVOR, BEOL

Proceedings Volume 10775, 34th European Mask and Lithography Conference; 107750N (2018)
https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2326908
Event: 34th European Mask and Lithography Conference, 2018, Grenoble, France