Cymer, Inc.

Christian J Wittak

William N Partlo

Igor Vladimirovich Fomenkov

Richard L Sandstrom

Alexander Igorevich Ershov

Daniel J W Brown

Richard M Ness

Richard C Ujazdowski

Robert N Jacques

Robert A Bergstedt

John Martin Algots

Scott T Smith

Thomas D Steiger

Paul C Melcher

Stuart L Anderson

Vladimir B Fleurov

Rajasekhar Rao

Curtis L Rettig

Gamaralalage G Padmabandu

Raymond F Cybulski

Robert A Shannon

Ronald L Spangler

German E Rylov

Alex P Ivaschenko

Shahryar Rokni

Paolo Zambon

Robert B Saethre

Mark Branham

David M Johns

Clay C Titus

Ed Danielewicz

Jerome A Emilo

Robin Swain

Sunjay Phatak

Edward Arriola

Michael Wyatt

Walter Crosby

John Fitzgerald

An apparatus and method which may comprise a pulsed gas discharge laser which may comprise a seed laser portion; an amplifier portion receiving the seed laser output and amplifying the optical intensity of each seed pulse; a pulse stretcher which may comprise: a first beam splitter operatively connected with the first delay path and a second pulse stretcher operatively connected with the second delay path; a first optical delay path tower containing the first beam splitter; a second optical delay path tower containing the second beam splitter; one of the first and second optical delay paths may comprise: a plurality of mirrors defining the respective optical delay path including mirrors located in the first tower and in the second tower; the other of the first and second optical delay paths may comprise: a plurality of mirrors defining the respective optical delay path including mirrors only in one of the first tower and the second tower.

Immersion lithography laser light source with pulse stretcher

The present invention provides an excimer laser capable of producing a high quality pulsed laser beam at pulse rates of about 4,000 Hz at pulse energies of about 5 mJ or greater. A preferred embodiment is an ArF excimer laser specifically designed as a light source for integrated circuit lithography. An improved wavemeter with special software monitors output beam parameters and controls a very fast PZT driven tuning mirror and the pulse power charging voltage to maintain wavelength and pulse energy within desired limits. In a preferred embodiment two fan motors drive a single tangential fan which provides sufficient gas flow to clear discharge debris from the discharge region during the approximately 0.25 milliseconds between pulses.

Four KHz gas discharge laser system

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San Diego, CA, United States of America

Christian J Wittak