Flare mitigation strategies in extreme ultraviolet lithography

This study investigates various approaches to flare mitigation in EUVL. We evaluate the effectiveness of rule-based correction by defining a design where the critical dimension uniformity is used as a measure of the quality of the correction. We also describe the outcome of a model-based correction and the limits of this approach. Finally, we discuss the calculation of accurate full-chip flare maps which are required to implement a rule-based solution. Our results clearly indicate that it is possible to implement an effective flare variation compensation using rule-base correction with current EDA technology, provided that highly accurate full-chip flare maps having the required resolution are available.