Anvik Corporation

Marc A Klosner

Kanti Jain

Marc I Zemel

Sivarama K Kuchibhotla

Nestor O Farmiga

Robert S Sposili

Shyam Raghunandan

A zero power identical pair of oppositely-oriented meniscus lens elements mounted in the projection light path, serves as curved mask support while compensating for optical anomalies such as beam shift and beam deviations produced by other transparent supports for the curved mask. The zero-power meniscus lens pair, without affecting the transmission beam characteristics, lets the beam diffract as efficiently as does a regular planar mask, thus preserving the partial coherence effects and resolution concepts of projection lithography. This simple but novel optics device is not only expected to clear several barriers for curved mask projection lithography but also find place in other applications where collimated or converging light beams have to travel extra paths without significant aberration.

Illumination compensator for curved surface lithography

A versatile maskless patterning system with capability for selecting rapidly among a plurality of projection lenses mounted on a turret. This provides the ability to rapidly select multiple choices for resolution and enables optimization of the combination of the imaging resolution and exposure throughput, making possible cost-effective fabrication of microelectronics packaging products. A preferred embodiment uses a digital micromirror device array spatial light modulator as a virtual mask. Another preferred embodiment use multiple closely spaced digital micromirror device array spatial light modulators to enhance throughput.

Versatile maskless lithography system with multiple resolutions

An optimized illumination system that efficiently produces uniform illumination for exposure, photoablation, and laser crystallization systems. The illumination system includes a homogenizer that uniformizes and shapes a light beam, which is directed onto a mask by condenser optics. The illumination system recycles radiation by directing light reflected by the mask back into the illumination system, where an apertured mirror situated at the input end re-directs it back toward the mask. The relative areas of the mirror and aperture affect recycling efficiency and system throughput, so the system features a larger-diameter recycling segment enabling greater mirror-to-aperture area ratios. An added segment at the output end of the homogenizer matches the homogenizer diameter to the projection imaging system object field size. This standardizes the homogenizer and condenser lens integration, reducing the need for customized parts and thus reducing manufacturing time and expense.

Illumination system optimized for throughput and manufacturability

Apparatus and method for patterned sequential lateral solidification of a substrate surface, avoiding the need for demagnification to avoid mask damage from fluence sufficient to overcome the threshold for sequential lateral solidification, while using the high throughput of a common stage presenting both 1:1 mask and substrate simultaneously for patterning. The radiation source provides imaging beam and non-imaging beam, each of fluence below the threshold of sequential lateral solidification, but with aggregate fluence above the threshold. The imaging beam path includes a relatively delicate 1:1 mask and 1:1 projection subsystem, with optical elements including a final fold mirror proximate to the substrate surface, put the below-threshold mask pattern on the substrate surface. The non-imaging beam bypasses the delicate elements of imaging beam path, passing through or around the final fold mirror, to impinge on the substrate surface at the same location. Where the radiation patterns of the masked imaging beam and non-imaging beam coincide, their aggregate fluence exceeds the threshold for sequential lateral solidification. The dual selection provides pattern without damage to delicate optical elements.

Dual-beam materials-processing system

A microlithography system, capable of performing high resolution imaging on large-area curved surfaces, based on projection lithography. The system utilizes a high-resolution lens to image a curved mask directly onto a curved substrate. The system uses a curved mask which is identical in shape to the curved substrate, in order to achieve a constant track length for conjugate object and image points, thereby maintaining focus over the full area of curved substrates having height variations that greatly exceed the depth-of-focus of the imaging lens. Magnification errors are controlled by continuous adjustments of the z-position of the projection lens during scanning, with the adjustments depending upon the topography of the curved mask and substrate. By performing the lithography using a step-and-scan seamless-patterning microlithography system, it is possible to pattern over large areas, greater than the field size of the lens. When the mask and substrate are mounted on a common scanning platform, the system operates with an inverted mask. The system also has provisions for making the appropriate curved projection masks, using a planar contact printing technique to pattern high-resolution features on a flexible film which is stretched over a curved mask blank and secured by a frame, with the option of using the system itself to replicate the curved mask onto an indeterminate number of curved fused-silica mask blanks, by projection printing.

Projection lithography on curved substrates

A maskless lithography system that provides large-area, seamless patterning using a reflective spatial light modulator such as a Deformable Micromirror Device (DMD) directly addressed by a control system so as to provide a first pattern, via a first projection subsystem, on a first photoresist-coated substrate panel, while simultaneously providing a duplicate pattern, which is a negative of the pattern on the first substrate panel, via a second projection subsystem, onto a second photosensitive substrate panel, thus using the normally-rejected non-pattern &ldquo;off&rdquo; pixel radiation reflected by the &ldquo;off&rdquo; pixel micromirrors of the DMD, to pattern a second substrate panel. Since the &ldquo;off&rdquo; pixel reflections create a pattern which is complementary to the &ldquo;on&rdquo; pixel pattern, using a complementary photoresist coating on the second substrate panel provides for a duplicate pattern, as is usually desired. Since both the &ldquo;on&rdquo; and &ldquo;off&rdquo; reflections are used from each pixel position, using the same selection, the result is the doubling of throughput.

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White Plains, NY, United States of America

Marc A Klosner