Mask repair: why bother and what's coming?

Monroe Cowan

doi:10.1117/12.3011884

20 December 2023 Mask repair: why bother and what's coming?

Monroe Cowan

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 12809, Bay Area Chrome Users Society Symposium 1985; 1280903 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3011884
Event: 5th Annual BACUS Symposium, 1985, Sunnyvale, CA, United States

Abstract

Why bother with mask repair at all? It is all potential to a problem just looking for a place to happen. It comes at the tail end of the process and you don't want to do more damage than you already have done. These two slogans everybody should know: "Make it right the first time" and "KISS", which stands for "keep it simple, stupid." If you think about that for awhile, mask repair violates both of them. If we did it right the first time we wouldn't have to repair at all, and any process that requires an investment of somewhere between $200,000 and $1,000,000 and takes up about ten square meters of clean room space, can't be called simple. Mask fabrication is not as complex as I see wafer fabrication by any means, but the thing is that you still add significant value to a substrate by the time you get down to the end of the process. You start out with something that might be worth a $100-$500 when you buy it—a resist coated chrome plate—and by the time you're finished with you're working on something that's going to be worth $1,000-$4,000. New, if you take a 5X reticle and you had one spot on it you couldn't use it. You have a choice, you're either going to have to trash it or you can go ahead and accept it. If you had to trash it you'd have to repair it, and you think twice before throwing that kind of money away. If you take a look at time, time is important. Any mask maker in the audience will tell that if he has a queue at his E-beam machines, a due-date of yesterday on a mask, mask repair sounds like a pretty good thing to have in your back pocket.

Citation Download Citation

Monroe Cowan "Mask repair: why bother and what's coming?", Proc. SPIE 12809, Bay Area Chrome Users Society Symposium 1985, 1280903 (20 December 2023); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3011884

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KEYWORDS

Reticles

Laboratories

Yield improvement

Mask making

Semiconducting wafers

Chromium

Argon

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