ELECTRONIC MATERIALS SURFACE PROCESSING WITH EXCIMER LASERS.

The continued reduction of VLSI circuit geometries together with increasingly higher levels of circuit integration create the demand for new fabrication techologies. One limitation of current IC fabrication is high temperature processing. High temperatures distort silicon wafers. Excimer lasers at very short ultra-violet wavelengths, offers the possibility of extremely low temperature processing. Three applications have been selected where the excimer laser solves problems in VLSI and integrated optics. These applications are: resist photoablation over alignment marks, which has been demonstrated as a technique to provide significant improvements in alignment overlay in VLSI lithography; the excimer laser system can be used for integrated circuit customization, a direct technique for structuring IC's to permit application-specific devices without making major changes in the fabrication process. In fiber optics the excimer laser system has been demonstrated as a tool for extracting light signals throu the sides of fibers, making possible the integration of fiber optic and VLSI technology in communications and related systems.