International Business Machines Corporation

Werner Kulcke

Johann Greschner

Harald Bohlen

Peter Nehmiz

Helmut Engelke

Michael H Kallmeyer

Gerhard Kaus

Uwe Behringer

Karl Asch

Joachim H Keyser

The photoresist film 12 on the surface of a wafer 11 is exposed through the shadow pattern which is generated by a transmission mask 13 arranged a short distance therefrom when the mask is subjected to a large-area electron beam. The source of the electron beam is an unstructured photocathode 16 on an ultraviolet transparent carrier such as, quartz glass 17 which is subjected to UV radiation from the backside. The electrons exiting from layer 16 are accelerated by a homogeneous electric field 14 towards the mask 13 and shaped to form a homogeneous collimated electron beam. By means of laterally positioned electrostatic deflecting electrodes 19a, 19b, the entire electron beam can be tilted relative to the wafer for adjusting the mask pattern.

Electron beam projection lithography

Two electrical components 1 and 2 containing electric conductor lines 3 and 4 are interconnected in that one component 2 comprises silicon contact fingers 5 and a back part 6 made of silicon and carrying the fingers 5. Fingers 5 and back part 6 preferably represent an integer component of an integrated circuit provided on a monocrystalline substrate and to be connected to other electrical components. Fingers 5 and back part 6 are preferably made in accordance with micromechanical silicon semiconductor technology.

Contact device for releasably connecting electrical components

A probe head arrangement for contacting a plurality of closely adjacent conductor lines 2 comprises a minimum of one probe head 3, where a plurality of fingers 4 together with a back 5 are made in one piece of monocrystalline silicon in semiconductor technique. A plurality of such probe heads 3 are composed to form a tester. At the beginning of each test it is determined which fingers 4 are to be, and are not to be placed onto the individual conductor lines 2 of a card 1 to be tested. Subsequently, the short and interruption tests can be implemented after the correlation of finger and probe head addresses with the conductor line addresses.

Probe head arrangement for conductor line testing with at least one

The mutual alignment of mask and substrate patterns of a specific semiconductor structure are attained by use of a plurality of individual marks in a specific geometric position with respect to each other. By the arrangement of openings in the alignment pattern of the mask, the broad electron beam is split into a multitude of individual beams which interact with alignment marks on the substrate. The interaction is used to generate a coincidence signal. The signal to noise ratio of this arrangement is determined by the overall current and is comparable to that of a thin concentrated electron beam. Registration is effected in a small amount of time and the disadvantageous effects of the high current density used in the raster process are not a factor. In a preferred embodiment, the alignment pattern of the mask is a matrix with center spacings of openings increasing upon advance in two directions perpendicular to each other such that no distance can be represented by the sum of smaller distances. Alignment signals are provided by detecting either absorbed or reflected electrons. A plurality of detectors in the mask are used to detect the reflected electrons.

Alignment system for particle beam lithography

A method of pattern exposing an energy beam sensitive target surface to a particle beam by proximity printing, wherein mask alignment errors such as lateral deviations, skew and linear distortions are determined and are effectively corrected by scanning the mask area being transferred with a controllably tilted particle beam, the particle beam having a diameter which is small compared to the area of the mask being scanned. At each scan point the particle beam is controllably tilted in the same azimuth direction as the alignment error for that point and by a tilt angle (taken with respect to the normal direction of the target surface) which has a tangent equal to the product of the magnitude of the alignment error and the separation between the mask and target surface at that point.

Method of shadow printing exposure

Radiation sensitive layers are x-ray exposed by providing a metal mask pattern on the layer through which the layer is exposed. The metal mask pattern is formed by applying a blanket metal layer to the radiation sensitive layer followed by an electron beam sensitive resist layer which is patterned by an electron beam exposure process. The exposed portions of the metal layer are then etched away to form the metal mask pattern.

Exposure process

A method of exposure of a target object by means of corpuscular beam shadow printing through a mask with several complementary zones wherein the beam, shiftable and tiltable about a point in the mask plane and arranged in parallel at a small distance from the target object, is first impinged upon a first of the complementary zones, then the object is shifted under a second of the complementary zones, and the positioning of the beam is changed so that any deviation of the actual position of the second area of the target object to be exposed from its nominal position is determined and compensated for by tilting the beam about a point substantially in the mask plane.

Growing community of inventors

Boeblingen, Germany

Werner Kulcke