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Semiconductor fabrication

Pushing deep ultraviolet lithography to its limits

Nature Photonics volume 1, pages 629–631 (2007)Cite this article

Photolithography at a wavelength of 193 nm in the deep UV with water immersion lenses can now produce microelectronics containing features with a half-pitch as small as 40 nm. The big question is how much further can the technology be pushed?

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Figure 1: Increasing the resolution of photolithography.
Figure 2: The lens for DUV photolithography with the highest NA: Starlith 1900 from Carl Zeiss.
Figure 3: Double patterning double-trench process.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of ASML and the help of Tilmann Heil and Markus Wiederspahn during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Carl Zeiss SMT, Oberkochen, 73446, Germany

    Michael Totzeck, Wilhelm Ulrich, Aksel Göhnermeier & Winfried Kaiser

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  1. Michael Totzeck
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  2. Wilhelm Ulrich
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  3. Aksel Göhnermeier
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  4. Winfried Kaiser
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Competing interests

The authors of this piece are also employees of the company Carl Zeiss SMT, which is involved in the development of deep UV lithography.

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Totzeck, M., Ulrich, W., Göhnermeier, A. et al. Pushing deep ultraviolet lithography to its limits. Nature Photon 1, 629–631 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2007.218

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