EUV mask particle adders during scanner exposure

As EUV reaches high volume manufacturing, scanner source power and reticle defectivity attract a lot of attention. Keeping a EUV mask clean after mask production is as essential as producing a clean EUV mask. Even though EUV pellicle is actively investigated, we might expose EUV masks without EUV pellicle for some time. To keep clean EUV mask under pellicle-less lithography, EUV scanner cleanliness needs to meet the requirement of high volume manufacturing. In this paper, we will show the cleanliness of EUV scanners in view of mask particle adders during scanner exposure. From this we will find several tendencies of mask particle adders depending on mask environment in scanner. Further we can categorize mask particle adders, which could show the possible causes of particle adders during exposure in scanners.

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