Back end of the line or back end of line (BEOL) is a process in semiconductor device fabrication that consists of depositing metal interconnect layers onto a wafer already patterned with devices. It is the second part of IC fabrication, after front end of line (FEOL).

•What is line edge roughness (LER)? •What mechanism causes it? •How can it be quantified? •What role is played by lithography? •How can BEOL low-k dielectric film etching parameters be optimized to reduce it?

As shown in Figure 2, an SMO dipole source was used in this study to pattern vertical line space structures. The process starts with BEOL stack deposition on silicon wafers, followed by coating the wafers using metal oxide resist.

Jun 20, 2024 · The backend-of-the-line (BEOL) is second major stage of the semiconductor manufacturing process where the interconnects are formed within a device. Interconnects, the tiny wiring schemes in devices, are becoming more compact at each node, causing a resistance-capacitance (RC) delay in chips.

we can consider BEOL structure as composed of the metal layers, and the VIA layers connecting different metal layers. To faithfully model BEOL statistical behavior for simulation. first we need to characterize the variations and correlations in (intra-layer) and between (inter-layer) every .

Nov 16, 2023 · Average line resistance, two-line mutual capacitance, and RC values can be extracted for the total conductor cross-sectional area using modeling. Then, trends can be compared between the proposed Ru, Co, and Cu metal schemes.

Using design-assisted voltage contrast measurement, the method enables in-line test and monitoring of process induced OVL and CD variation of back-end-of line (BEOL) features with litho-etch-litho-etch (LELE) patterning.

In litho-etch-litho-etch (LELE) double patterning lithography (DPL), layout patterns are decomposed into two masks denoted henceforth as Color 1 and Color 2 such that all polygons on a given mask satisfy an inter-polygon minimum spacing requirement.

FIN/Gate in logic and word line/bit line in memory all can be patterned with positive tone self-aligned patterning. For Cu interconnect in logic BEOL, negative tone self-aligned has to be used due to damascene process which means final pattern in BEOL inter-metal dielectric (IMD) is defined by space in between self-aligned spacers.

Mar 20, 2018 · In this work we first compare three different patterning options for 12 nm half-pitch gratings at the hard mask level: EUV-based SADP and 193i-based SAQP and SAOP. This comparison will be based on process window, line edge/width roughness and cost.