Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation

Renesas Technology Corp.

Keiji Hashimoto

Masahiro Takahashi

Hiroshi Mohri

Yukio Iimura

Hiroyuki Miyashita

Junji Fujikawa

Kazuo Tomita

Susumu Matsumoto

Yasutaka Nishioka

Akihisa Iwasaki

Wataru Goto

Mitsuru Sekiguchi

First wirings and first dummy wirings are formed in a p-SiOC film formed on a substrate. A p-SiOC film is formed, and a cap film is formed on the p-SiOC film. A dual damascene wiring, including vias connected to the first wirings and the second wirings, is formed in the cap film and the p-SiOC film. Dummy vias are formed on the periphery of isolated vias.

Method of manufacturing interconnecting structure with vias

The invention relates a halftone phase shift photomask and a blank therefor, which enables the transmittance of a phase shift portion to be varied even after blank or photomask fabrication, can accommodate to a variety of patterns, and can be fabricated on a mass scale. The exposure light transmittance of a halftone phase shift layer is arbitrarily variable within the range of 1% to 50%, inclusive, by exposing the blank or photomask to a high temperature elevated to at least 150.degree. C., to an oxidizing atmosphere, or to a reducing atmosphere at a step that can provided independent of the steps for film-forming or photomask fabrication step. This enables the exposure light transmittance of the halftone phase shift layer to be changed to any desired value after blank or photomask fabrication, and so an optimal halftone phase shift photomask to be obtained depending on the size, area, location, shape, and the like of the transferred pattern.

Blanks for halftone phase shift photomasks, halftone phase shift

A halftone phase shift photomask designed so that it is possible to shorten the photoengraving process, use a production line for a conventional photomask, prevent lowering of the contract between the transparent and semitransparent regions at a long wavelength in the visible region, which is used for inspection and measurement, and also prevent charge-up during electron beam exposure, and that ordinary physical cleaning process can be used for the halftone phase shift photomask. The halftone phase shift photomask has on a transparent substrate (1) a region which is semitransparent to exposure light and a region which is transparent to the exposure light so that the phase difference between light passing through the transparent region and light passing through the semitransparent region is substantially .pi. radians. A semitransparent film that constitutes the semitransparent region is arranged in the form of a multilayer film including layers (3, 4) of chromium or a chromium compound. For example, the layer (3) is formed of chromium oxide, chromium oxide nitride, chromium oxide carbide, or chromium oxide nitride carbide, and the layer (4) is formed of chromium or chromium nitride. The layer (3) mainly serves as a phase shift layer, while the layer (4) mainly serves as a transmittance control layer that suppresses the rise of transmittance at the long wavelength side. The semitransparent film is formed by physical vapor deposition.

Halftone phase shift photomask, halftone phase shift photomask blank,

A phase shift photomask and a photomask blank used to produce the same. A dry etching stopper layer, which is disposed between a substrate and a light-shielding layer or between the substrate and a phase shifter layer, is made of either a film mainly composed of tin oxide nitride, which has high etching selectivity and high permeability, or an alumina film formed by sputtering, followed by heat treatment carried out in an oxidizing atmosphere, thereby enabling the required overetching to be satisfactorily performed during etching of the phase shifter layer, and thus making it possible to effect precise phase control. In addition, it is possible to eliminate the occurrence of an in-plane transmittance distribution.

Photomask blank and phase shift photomask

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Keiji Hashimoto