METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROJECTION PRINTING

摘要

A method, apparatus for and a device manufactured by the same, for printing a microlithographic pattern with high fidelity and resolution using simultaneously optimized illuminator and pupil filters having semi-continuous transmission profiles. The optimization can be further improved if the illuminator and pupil filters are polarization selective. The optimization method becomes a linear programming problem and uses a set of relevant features in the merit function. With a suitably chosen merit function and a representative feature set both neutral printing without long-range proximity effects and good resolution of small features can be achieved. With only short-range proximity effects OPC correction is simple and can be done in real time using a perturbation method.