Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090231562 | EFFECTIVE LIGHT SOURCE SHAPE DATABASE GENERATION METHOD, OPTICAL IMAGE CALCULATION METHOD, RECORDING MEDIUM, EXPOSURE METHOD, AND DEVICE FABRICATION METHOD - The present invention provides a method of generating a database of effective light source shapes including a generation step of generating an initial database representing an effective light source shapes corresponding to a plurality of conditions settable for an illumination optical system, a measurement step of setting an arbitrary condition for the illumination optical system, and measuring an effective light source shape, a calculation step of calculating a difference amount between an effective light source shape when each of the plurality of conditions is set for the illumination optical system and the effective light source shape included in the initial database, and a correction step of correcting the effective light source shapes included in the initial database using the difference amounts and compiling the corrected effective light source shapes into an actual database. | 09-17-2009 |
20090233194 | PARAMETER DETERMINATION METHOD, EXPOSURE METHOD, DEVICE FABRICATION METHOD, AND STORAGE MEDIUM - The present invention provides a parameter determination method of determining an optical parameter and a process parameter by using an optical simulator which calculates a resist image to be formed on a resist applied on a substrate, based on the optical parameter of an exposure apparatus which transfers a pattern of a mask onto the substrate, and a process simulator which calculates a process image to be formed on the substrate, based on the process parameter representing information concerning the resist and information concerning a process to be performed on the resist. | 09-17-2009 |
20090310116 | RECORDING MEDIUM STORING PROGRAM FOR DETERMINING EXPOSURE PARAMETER, EXPOSURE METHOD, AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURING DEVICE - An exposure method comprises setting an exposure condition using a value of an exposure parameter when plural types of patterns are transferred onto a substrate. The method of determining a value of an exposure parameter comprises calculating an optical image, formed on an image plane upon illuminating a pattern on an object plane, for each of combinations of plural values of an exposure parameter and plural values of at least one of an exposure amount and a defocus amount, calculating, for each of the plural values of the exposure parameter, a deviation between a contour of a target optical image and a calculated contour of the optical image, in each of the plural types of patterns, and determining a value of the exposure parameter, at which a maximum value of the deviations among the plural types of patterns is minimum, as a value of the exposure parameter when exposing the substrate. | 12-17-2009 |
20100009275 | EXPOSURE METHOD AND MEMORY MEDIUM STORING COMPUTER PROGRAM - A method comprises determining an exposure condition by executing a process including computing an image formed on an image plane under the current exposure condition while changing the exposure condition, and evaluating a line width of the computed image, and exposing the substrate under the determined exposure condition, wherein the determining includes, computing a simplified evaluation value of the computed image, changing the exposure condition and executing the process in the changed exposure condition, after evaluating the computed image if the simplified evaluation value satisfies an allowable value, and changing the exposure condition and executing the process in the changed exposure condition without evaluating the computed image if the simplified evaluation value does not satisfy the allowable value. | 01-14-2010 |
20100102255 | METHOD OF TRANSFERRING PATTERN OF RETICLE, COMPUTER READABLE STORAGE MEDIUM, AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURING DEVICE - A method includes setting a target pattern to be formed on a substrate using a reticle, obtaining a first pattern using the reticle and a first illumination condition, calculating, a second illumination condition under which the target pattern is transferred onto the substrate using the reticle, and a third illumination condition under which the first pattern is transferred onto a substrate using the reticle, using mathematical models each of which defines the relationship between an illumination condition and a virtual pattern transferred onto a substrate using the illumination condition, determining a fourth illumination condition, obtained by adding the difference between the calculated second illumination condition and third illumination condition to the first illumination condition, as the illumination condition, and transferring the pattern of the reticle onto the substrate by illuminating the reticle using the determined illumination condition. | 04-29-2010 |
20110107277 | RECORDING MEDIUM AND DETERMINATION METHOD - The present invention provides a computer-readable recording medium recording a program for causing a computer to execute a method of determining a pattern of a mask and an effective light source distribution with which the mask is illuminated, both of which are used for an exposure apparatus including an illumination optical system which illuminates a mask with light from a light source and a projection optical system which projects a pattern of the mask onto a substrate. | 05-05-2011 |
20110206270 | STORAGE MEDIUM STORING COMPUTER PROGRAM FOR DETERMINING AT LEAST ONE OF EXPOSURE CONDITION AND MASK PATTERN - A computer readable storage medium is provided, storing a computer-executable program for causing a computer to determine at least one of mask pattern and exposure condition of an exposure apparatus having an illumination optical system for illuminating a mask with light from a light source and a projection optical system for projecting the mask pattern onto a substrate. The program causes the computer to perform calculation of an image of a pattern on an object plane of the projection optical system using information about lateral shift of an image caused by the exposure apparatus, and determination of at least one of the exposure condition and the mask pattern based on a calculation result. | 08-25-2011 |
20120033194 | DECISION METHOD AND STORAGE MEDIUM - The present invention provides a decision method of causing a computer to decide an exposure condition to be set in an exposure apparatus including an illumination optical system that illuminates a pattern including a plurality of pattern elements, and a projection optical system that projects the pattern onto a substrate, including a step of obtaining a distance between intersections of a first line, used to evaluate dimensions of images of the pattern elements, and contours of the images of the pattern elements by obtaining the image of the pattern formed on the image plane of the projection optical system, and a step of determining whether there exist intersections of a second line, used to evaluate whether the images of the pattern elements are resolved, and the contours of the images of the pattern elements to evaluate whether the images of the pattern elements are resolved. | 02-09-2012 |
20120075614 | EXPOSURE METHOD AND STORAGE MEDIUM - The present invention provides an exposure method including the steps of generating a plurality of element light sources formed on a pupil plane of an illumination optical system, setting a plurality of aberration states which are expected to exist in a projection optical system, calculating, for each of all combinations of the plurality of aberration states and the plurality of element light sources, an optical image of a pattern of a mask, which is formed in an evaluation area when one aberration state among the plurality of aberration states is produced in the projection optical system, and the pattern of the mask is illuminated with one element light source among the plurality of element light sources, determining, based on the calculated optical images, as a light intensity distribution to be formed on the pupil plane, a light source obtained by combining the plurality of element light sources applied with weights. | 03-29-2012 |
20120081689 | METHOD FOR DETERMINING EXPOSURE CONDITION AND COMPUTER-READABLE STORAGE MEDIA STORING PROGRAM FOR DETERMINING EXPOSURE CONDITION - A method for determining an exposure condition for use in projecting an image of a pattern of an original on a substrate includes a setting step of setting an exposure condition, an image calculating step of calculating a dimension of an image to be projected on the substrate under the set exposure condition, an electrical characteristic calculating step of calculating an electrical characteristic of at least one of a portion for use as an interconnection and a portion for use as a transistor in a pattern to be formed on the substrate in accordance with a result calculated in the image calculating step, a determining step of determining whether the electrical characteristic calculated in the electrical characteristic calculating step satisfies a requirement, and an adjusting step of adjusting the set exposure condition when the electrical characteristic is determined not to satisfy the requirement in the determining step. | 04-05-2012 |
20120092639 | RESIST PATTERN CALCULATION METHOD AND CALCULATION PROGRAM STORAGE MEDIUM - A recording medium stores a program for causing a computer to execute a method of calculating a resist pattern. The method includes: a first step of calculating a light intensity distribution of an optical image formed on the resist, based on the reticle pattern and an exposure condition; a second step of convoluting, using a first diffusion length, the calculated light intensity distribution; a third step of calculating a representative light intensity from the calculated light intensity distribution or the convoluted light intensity distribution; a fourth step of correcting the convoluted light intensity distribution by adding, to the convoluted light intensity distribution, a correction function including a first function given by: | 04-19-2012 |
20120107730 | RECORDING MEDIUM RECORDING PROGRAM FOR GENERATING MASK DATA, METHOD FOR MANUFACTURING MASK, AND EXPOSURE METHOD - A mask includes a main pattern for resolving a target pattern to be formed on a substrate and an auxiliary pattern not resolving. Values of parameters of the main pattern and the auxiliary pattern are set. An image is calculated that is formed when the main pattern and the auxiliary pattern determined by the values of the parameters of the main pattern and the auxiliary pattern are projected by a projection optical system. Based on a result of the calculation that is performed by modifying the values of the parameters of the main pattern and the auxiliary pattern, the values of the parameters of the main pattern and the auxiliary pattern are determined to generate data of the mask including the main pattern and the auxiliary pattern determined. | 05-03-2012 |
20120233574 | NON-TRANSITORY COMPUTER-READABLE STORAGE MEDIUM, DECISION METHOD AND COMPUTER - The present invention provides a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a program that causes a computer to decide an exposure condition in an exposure apparatus, the program causing the computer to execute a step of selecting an evaluation item of interest from a plurality of evaluation items to be used to evaluate an image formed on an image plane of a projection optical system in correspondence with the exposure condition, a step of selecting, as an auxiliary evaluation item, an evaluation item which is different from the evaluation item of interest and changes a value in the same direction as that of a change in a value of the evaluation item of interest upon changing parameter values included in the exposure condition, and a step of setting an evaluation function including the evaluation item of interest and the auxiliary evaluation item as values. | 09-13-2012 |
20130010272 | DETERMINATION METHOD, STORAGE MEDIUM AND INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS - The present invention provides a determination method of determining exposure conditions of an exposure apparatus including an illumination optical system which illuminates a mask, and a projection optical system which projects a pattern of the mask onto a substrate, the method including a step of setting an illumination parameter for a light intensity distribution formed on a pupil plane of the illumination optical system, and an aberration parameter for an aberration of the projection optical system, and a step of determining a value of the illumination parameter and a value of the aberration parameter so that an image performance of an optical image of the pattern of the mask satisfies an evaluation criterion set for a target pattern to be formed on an image plane of the projection optical system. | 01-10-2013 |
20130196517 | DRAWING METHOD AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURING ARTICLE - A charged particle beam drawing apparatus draws a plurality of cut patterns on a plurality of first linear patterns arranged to extend in a first direction and align themselves at a predetermined pitch P in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction. The plurality of cut patterns are drawn so that an interval Ai in the second direction between the centers of each pair of cut patterns adjacent to each other in the second direction (i is a number which specifies the pair) satisfies a relation: | 08-01-2013 |
20140199843 | PATTERN FORMING METHOD AND ARTICLE MANUFACTURING METHOD - Provided is a method for forming a pattern on a layer on a substrate. The method includes forming a line-and-space pattern on the layer; coating a resist on the line-and-space pattern and filling the resist in a space portion of the line-and-space pattern; exposing a pattern to the resist, developing the exposed resist, and forming a resist pattern on the space portion; and forming a pattern on the layer using a pattern which is a combination of a line portion of the line-and-space pattern and the resist pattern as a mask. | 07-17-2014 |