Immersion defect reduction, part I: analysis of water leaks in an immersion scanner

Abstract

This paper reports the water-leakage mechanism of the immersion hood in an immersion scanner. The proposed static analysis reveals the immersion hood design performance in defect distribution. A dynamic water-leakage model traces the leaked water and identifies its position on the wafer, during exposure. Comparing simulation to experimental results on bare-silicon and resist-coated wafers, the defect type, source of residuals, and critical settings on the immersion system were clearly identified.