Hoya Corporation

Masaru Tanabe

Atsushi Kawaguchi

Hiroyuki Akagawa

Osamu Suzuki

Akihiro Kawahara

Naozumi Ishibashi

Masaru Mitsui

Kazuya Sakai

Tatsuya Sasaki

Yohei Ikebe

Hideaki Mitsui

Naoki Nishida

Satoshi Iwashita

A mask blank substrate includes two opposing main surfaces, has a glass material containing SiOand TiO, and has a first region in one main surface side. The first region is a region within a square including a center portion in the one main surface and which is a region extending from the one main surface toward the other main surface up to a position in depth. An inner region of the substrate excluding the first region has a locally non-uniform portion, a ratio of Ti content rate to Si content rate (Ti/Si) of the non-uniform portion differs from Ti/Si of the inner region excluding the non-uniform portion by 0.25% or more, and the variation of Ti content rate in the inner region of the substrate excluding the first region and the non-uniform portion is 0.06 mass % or less.

Mask blank substrate, substrate with multilayer reflective film, reflective mask blank, reflective mask, and method of manufacturing semiconductor device

A mask blank substrate and a method for selecting a mask blank substrate wherein a square calculation region is set on the main surface of the substrate. Specific points are set at the corner portions of the calculation region. The heights of the specific points from a reference plane are acquired, an imaginary plane passing through three of the specific points is set, an intersection between the imaginary plane and a perpendicular line that passes through the remaining of the specific points and that is perpendicular to the reference plane is set, and the distance between the remaining of the specific points and the intersection is calculated. A substrate in which the distance satisfies a predetermined reference value is selected as a mask blank substrate.

Method for manufacturing a mask blank substrate, method for manufacturing a mask blank, method for manufacturing a transfer mask, method for manufacturing a semiconductor device, a mask blank substrate, a mask blank, and a transfer mask

The object is to provide a mask blank substrate, a mask blank, and a transfer mask which can achieve easy correction of a wavefront by a wavefront correction function of an exposure apparatus. The further object is to provide methods for manufacturing them. A virtual surface shape, which is an optically effective flat reference surface shape defined by a Zernike polynomial, is determined, wherein the Zernike polynomial is composed of only terms in which the order of variables related to a radius is second or lower order and includes one or more terms in which the order of the variables related to a radius is second-order; and the mask blank substrate, in which difference data (PV value) between the maximum value and the minimum value of difference shape between a virtual surface shape and a composite surface shape obtained by composing respective surface shapes of two main surfaces is 25 nm or less, is selected.

Mask blank substrate, multi-layer reflective film coated substrate, and mask blank

Provided are a mask blank substrate which has effectively and extremely high principal surface flatness while a reduction in the manufacturing throughput of the mask blank substrate is suppressed, a mask blank, and a transfer mask. Also provided are manufacturing methods therefor. virtual reference surface that becomes an optically effective flat reference surface defined by a Zernike polynomial which is composed of only terms in which the order of a variable related to a radius is the second or lower order, and includes one or more terms in which the order of the variable related to the radius is the second order is set, and a mask blank substrate satisfying the condition that data (PV value) relating to the difference between the maximum value and the minimum value of the difference data between the reference surface and the measured shape of the mask blank substrate is one-eighth or less of an exposure wavelength (&#x3bb;) is selected.

Mask blank substrate, mask blank, transfer mask, and method of manufacturing semiconductor device

Provided are a mask blank substrate which has effectively and extremely high principal surface flatness while a reduction in the manufacturing throughput of the mask blank substrate is suppressed, a mask blank, and a transfer mask. Also provided are manufacturing methods therefor. A virtual reference surface that becomes an optically effective flat reference surface defined by a Zernike polynomial which is composed of only terms in which the order of a variable related to a radius is the second or lower order, and includes one or more terms in which the order of the variable related to the radius is the second order is set, and a mask blank substrate satisfying the condition that data (PV value) relating to the difference between the maximum value and the minimum value of the difference data between the reference surface and the measured shape of the mask blank substrate is one-eighth or less of an exposure wavelength (A) is selected.

In a simulation step of simulating a surface configuration of a substrate which is used for a mask blank and which is set to an exposure apparatus, height information from a reference plane is derived from a plurality of measurement points on a main surface of the substrate. From the height information, a curved surface of fourth, fifth, or sixth order is approximated which is represented by a polynomial specified by a plurality of terms and coefficients of the terms. The coefficients are stored as coefficient information in association with the substrate.

Method of manufacturing a mask blank substrate, method of manufacturing a mask blank, method of manufacturing a transfer mask, and method of manufacturing a semiconductor device

A photomask blank manufacturing method that forms, on a light-transmissive substrate, a thin film for forming a transfer pattern, thereby producing a thin-film coated substrate and then presses the thin-film coated substrate. The pressing is carried out, for example, by a cold isostatic pressing method in a range of 1000 to 10000 atmospheric pressure.

Photomask blank, photomask blank manufacturing method, and photomask manufacturing method

An internal defect or the like of a transfer mask is detected using transmitted light quantity distribution data of an inspection apparatus. Using a die-to-die comparison inspection method, inspection light is irradiated to a first region of a thin film to obtain a first transmitted light quantity distribution, the inspection light is also irradiated to a second region of the thin film to obtain a second transmitted light quantity distribution, a predetermined-range difference distribution is produced by plotting coordinates at which difference light quantity values calculated from a comparison between the first transmitted light quantity distribution and the second transmitted light quantity distribution are each not less than a first threshold value and less than a second threshold value, and a selection is made of a transfer mask in which a region with high density of plotting is not detected in the predetermined-range difference distribution.

Method of manufacturing a transfer mask and method of manufacturing a semiconductor device

Provided is a thin film evaluation method for a transfer mask which is adapted to be applied with ArF excimer laser exposure light and comprises a thin film formed with a pattern on a transparent substrate. The method includes intermittently irradiating pulsed laser light onto the thin film to thereby evaluate the irradiation durability of the thin film.

Thin film evaluation method, mask blank, and transfer mask

A before-chucking main surface shape is measured in an actual measurement region of a main surface of a substrate which has been precision-polished. Based on that shape and a shape of a mask stage (), a simulated after-chucking main surface shape of the substrate, when a photomask () manufactured from the substrate is set in an exposure apparatus, is obtained. A selection is made of the substrate in which the after-chucking main surface shape has a flatness of a first threshold value or less in a virtual calculation region thereof. A calculation is performed and a selection is made of the substrate in which an after-correction main surface shape has a flatness of a second threshold value or less in the correction region.

Methods of manufacturing a mask blank substrate, a mask blank, a photomask, and a semiconductor device

In a simulation step, based on information of a main surface shape of a transparent substrate and shape information of a mask stage of an exposure apparatus and using a deflection differential equation taking into account a twist deformation, height information at a plurality of measurement points is obtained by simulating a state where the transparent substrate is set in the exposure apparatus. Based on the height information obtained through the simulation, a flatness of the transparent substrate when it is set in the exposure apparatus is calculated in a flatness calculation step. Then, by judging in a selection step whether or not the calculated flatness satisfies a specification, the transparent substrate whose flatness satisfies the specification is used as a substrate for a mask blank.

Method of manufacturing a substrate for a mask blank, method of manufacturing a mask blank, method of manufacturing a transfer mask, and method of manufacturing a semiconductor device

A mask blank substrate for a photomask is chucked on a mask stage of an exposure apparatus. A main surface, on the side where a thin film for a transfer pattern is to be formed, of the mask blank substrate has a flatness of 0.3 &#x3bc;m or less in a 142 mm square area including its central portion and has a convex shape being relatively high at its central portion and relatively low at its peripheral portion. The difference upon fitting, to the main surface of the mask blank substrate, a virtual reference main surface, having a spherical shape in a 132 mm square area, of a virtual reference substrate is 40 nm or less.

Mask blank substrate, mask blank, photomask, and methods of manufacturing the same

A mask blank manufacturing department manufactures a mask blank by forming a thin film to be a mask pattern on a mask blank transparent substrate. When providing the mask blank to a mask manufacturing department, the mask blank manufacturing department provides optical characteristic information (transmittance variation) of the mask blank transparent substrate and optical characteristic information (transmittance variation and/or phase difference variation) of the mask blank to the mask manufacturing department. The optical characteristic information of the mask blank transparent substrate is provided to the mask blank manufacturing department from a materials processing department that manufactures mask blank transparent substrates.

Mask blank providing system, mask blank providing method, mask blank transparent substrate manufacturing method, mask blank manufacturing method, and mask manufacturing method

A substrate set is a mask blank substrate set including a plurality of substrates each for use in a mask blank for producing a photomask to be chucked on a mask stage of an exposure apparatus. In each of the substrates in the mask blank substrate set, a main surface, on the side where a thin film for forming a transfer pattern is to be formed, has a convex shape being relatively high at its center and relatively low at its peripheral portion. In each substrate, the flatness in a 142 mm square area, including a central portion, of the main surface is 0.3 &#x3bc;m or less and the difference upon fitting to a reference main surface of a reference substrate is 40 nm or less.

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Tokyo, Japan

Masaru Tanabe