A highly accurate stress measurement system for producing precise X-ray masks

A new system that measures stress in film deposited on Si wafers has been developed to produce highly accurate X-ray masks. The system consists of very rigid air sliders, an electrostatic sensor, and a soft-handling wafer chuck. With the system, wafer warp is precisely measured before and after film deposition, and the stress distribution is calculated from those measurements. Wafer warps can be measured with a repeatability of a few nanometers by this system. The stress distribution of absorber film on 2-mm-thick Si wafers can be determined with an accuracy of +/- 5 MPa. The stress distribution agrees well with the pattern position shifts in the membrane.