Photomask

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As used in photolithography, a photomask is typically a transparent fused quartz blank covered with a pattern defined with chrome metal as the absorbing film. Photomasks are used at wavelengths of 365 nm, 248 nm, and 193 nm. Photomasks have also been developed for other forms of radiation such as 157 nm, 13.5 nm (EUV), X-ray and electrons and ions, but these require entirely new materials for the substrate and the pattern film.

A set of photomasks, each defining a pattern layer in integrated circuit fabrication, is fed into a photolithography stepper or scanner and individually selected for exposure.

In photolithography for the mass production of integrated circuit devices, the more correct term is usually photoreticle or simply reticle. In the case of a photomask, there is a one-to-one correspondence between the mask pattern and the wafer pattern. This was the standard for the 1:1 mask aligners that were succeeded by steppers and scanners with reduction optics. As used in steppers and scanners, the reticle only contains one layer of the chip. This is projected and shrunk by four or five times onto the wafer surface. To achieve complete wafer coverage, the wafer is repeatedly 'stepped' from position to position under the optical column until full exposure is achieved.

Features 150 nm or below in size generally require phase-shifting to enhance the image quality to acceptable values. This can be achieved in many ways, but the two most common methods are to use an attenuated phase-shifting background film on the mask to increase the contrast of small intensity peaks, or to etch the exposed quartz so that the edge between the etched and unetched areas can be used to image nearly zero intensity. In the second case, unwanted edges would need to be trimmed out with another exposure. The former method is attenuated phase-shifting, and is often considered a weak enhancement, requiring special illumination for the most enhancement, while the latter method is known as alternating-aperture phase-shifting, and is the most popular strong enhancement technique.

As leading-edge semiconductor features shrink, photomask features which are 4× larger must inevitably shrink as well. This could pose challenges as the absorber film will need to become thinner, and hence less opaque (Sato 2002). A recent study by IMEC has found that thinner absorbers degrade image contrast and hence contribute to line-edge roughness, using state-of-the-art photolithography tools (Yoshizawa 2005). One possibility is to eliminate absorbers altogether and use 'chromeless' masks, relying solely on phase-shifting for imaging.

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Leading commercial photomask manufacturers, 2003

Dai Nippon Printing Company, Japan, $499 mln (revenue)
Photronics, USA, $349 mln
Toppan Photomasks, USA, $326 mln
Toppan Printing Company, Japan, $321 mln

In October, 2004, DuPont Photomasks was acquired by Toppan, approved by US regulators and merged in May 2005 to became the largest photomask manufacturer.

Major chipmakers, such as Intel, IBM, NEC, TSMC, Samsung, etc., have their own, large maskmaking facilities.

The cost to set up a modern mask shop is $200-500 million USD, a very high threshold for entering this market.

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