Comprehensive and quantitative characterization and analysis method of 3D mask effect for lithography simulation

Abstract

With the increasing requirement of lithographic resolution, the degradation of 3D mask effect on imaging cannot be ignored. The researches of its polarization properties and effect on imaging are of great significance to the development of imaging-based aberration measurement techniques and computational lithography. In this paper, a novel method for comprehensive and quantitative characterization of 3D mask effect is proposed. By comparing the far-field spectrum of Kirchhoff model and 3D mask model, the 3D mask effect is comprehensively and quantitatively characterized as the form of polarization aberration. Pupil-spectrum comprehensive analysis method and background glitch noise culling method are proposed to improve the systematicness and accuracy of 3D mask characterization. The simulation comprehensively analyzes the effect of mask line width and absorber thickness on all polarization properties of the 3D mask effect, showing that this method can provide a more comprehensive analysis of the 3D mask effect compared with the previous methods.