Stefan Hempel, Steffen Volt & Wolfram Grundke, AMD, Dresden, Germany

ABSTRACT

Lithography scanners represent the most cost-intensive tools in a semiconductor facility. Productivity improvements on litho clusters not only increase the whole lithography productivity but also enhance the entire fab performance. To ensure a cost-efficient lithography process, the scanner should always represent the internal bottleneck within a linked lithography cell. Therefore, it is specifically important to maximize the scanner performance and its output. This paper provides an overview of methods and approaches to increase the productivity of linked lithography cells.