Tutorial Speaker

A History of E-Beam Mask Writers and Their Role in Semiconductor Manufacturing

Reiko Nishimura (NuFlare Technology, Inc.)

Biography

Ms. Nishimura started her career in 1998 with the Semiconductor Equipment Division at Toshiba Machine Co., Ltd., and entered the industry of e-beam lithography. She continued her career at NuFlare technology, Inc. after it had been established by inheriting the business from the division and Toshiba. She expanded the field of her activities and led the engineers on writing accuracy improvements.

Ms. Nishimura is currently the senior manager of the Mask Lithography Strategy & Planning Department at NuFlare Technology, Inc.
Since 2024, drawing upon her extensive experience in development, she has been proactively leading the formulation of business and technology strategies for electron beam mask writers.

Systems engineering,Evaluation technologies

Abstract

In this short course, I will explain the role of the Electron Beam (E-Beam) mask writer (EB mask writer) within the photomask production process and, more broadly, within the semiconductor manufacturing industry. The presentation will give an introduction to the early development of the EB mask writer and explain the evolution of the EB mask writer as the technology has progressed to meet the exacting requirements of the perpetually shrinking feature sizes with smaller tolerances required in the pursuit of the continual transistor scaling at the heart of Moore’s Law economic and technological drive. Accordingly, the synchronized requirements between the prevailing wafer exposure technologies and also the photomask and its own lithography will be noted. I will thus describe the benefits of electron beam lithography, compared to competing irradiating processes, which led to electron beam lithography becoming the dominant mask exposure technology, especially for advanced semiconductor manufacturing nodes.
The course will begin with the introduction of the single point beam mask writer and its enabling technologies. Next, the rise of the 50keV Single Variable Shaped Beam mask writer (SVSB mask writer) will be discussed, along with the improved capabilities it delivered to the photomask production process. And finally, the most recent era in electron beam lithography, characterized by the adoption of the Multi E-Beam mask writer (MEB mask writer) will be reviewed, including discussion of the current leading edge MEB mask writer enabling the EUV semiconductor manufacturing and also High NA semiconductor development of today. The course will conclude with closing thoughts about the future challenges for electron beam photomask exposure.