Development of new chrome blanks for 65-nm node and beyond

For advanced reticle fabrication, a resist thinning technique continues a promising trend of the resolution enhancement. To bring out thin resist performances, a new chrome absorber has been developed for the second layer of 193nm att-PSM. The new chrome absorber is thinner and has a higher dry-etch rate than our current products, such as NTAR5. This new chrome absorber can utilize a super thin resist application because of a reduction in dry-etching time. Additionally, a technique of film stress reduction was also developed to reduce placement shift by film stress relaxation. The new chrome absorber with super thin resist (TF blanks) exceeds current products in the mask-making metrics of resolution and CD performance. This performance will meet the requirements of 65nm-node and beyond.