Lithographic tool dynamic coordinate calibration for CDU improvement

In lithographic scanner, many different physical factors could impact to image quality and CD uniformity. In optical systems, the pupil filling quality (source shape), wavefront error and stray light can decrease the intensity contrast and shrink the process window. In mechanical domain, the vibration and scanning synchronization error have the similar effect to imaging process. Imaging in scanner is a dynamic exposure process and in this process, aerial image should keep the same relative position to the wafer. It requests the lithographic tool must have a very stable mechanical frame and very good motion control performance. In addition, the wafer stage, reticle stage's coordinate and projection lens' grid should be matched exactly, include the scanning direction and velocity ratio. The tool's alignment system can calibrate the statistic coordinate for overlay, but it cannot calibrate the dynamic coordinate in scanning direction very well because projection lens' grid has a small asymmetric signiture. This systematic error should be calibrated for CDU improvement. An imaging model considering the motion blurring is represented in this paper and based on this model, the dynamic coordinate's error could be analyzed. Furthermore, exposure method can be used to calibrate the dynamic coordinate and improve the CD uniformity. Exposure latitude will be used to check and calibrate the lithographic tool's dynamic coordinate. We designed a special calibration process to obtain the best dynamic coordinate setting for scanner. In this process, some tool's coordinate parameters (scanning skew and scale) have been changed for every field to obtain the multi-dimensions' exposure information. Exposure window can be represented from this result, and in this exposure window, the best dynamic coordinate setting could be found. After the dynamic coordinate calibrated, the CDU is improved.