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Product Briefing Outline: Vistec Semiconductor Systems has introduced the Vistec LWM9045, a SEM-based Critical Dimension (CD) measurement system for photomask manufacture. The tool was designed specifically to address the needs for 45nm technology node photomask production and 32nm process development cycles.

Problem: Compared to the last tool generation, the measurement performance has been increased by 30 percent. Improved long-term repeatability is now better than 1nm, due to extremely low electron charging and almost no substrate contamination, according to the company.

Solution: The incorporation of a new beam blanking system into the LWM9045's redesigned column helps to control charging during the measurement process. The enhanced functionality of its Ozonizer enables lower contamination rates. The scanning system, reengineered for reduced noise, together with a new detector system further improves measurement precision. The use of a highly accurate laser stage combined with software positioning corrections is claimed to result in stage accuracy uncertainty of less than +/- 75nm. Therefore, in most cases local pattern matching can be avoided achieving greater throughput and system productivity. The new Graphics User Interface has been designed for ease of system operation and measurement job programming.

Applications: Critical Dimension (CD) measurement of 45nm and 32nm photomasks.

Platform: Semi-automatic job setup by ASCII input of data files generated by CATS, Hotscope, or Lavis Software.

Availability: March 2007 onwards.