阅读说明：本技术 一种动态气体隔离装置以及极紫外光刻设备 (Dynamic gas isolation device and extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment ) 是由 孙家政 王魁波 丁金滨 吴晓斌 马翔宇 季艺雯 于 2021-06-15 设计创作，主要内容包括：本发明提供一种动态气体隔离装置以及极紫外光刻设备,动态气体隔离装置包括隔离管道以及供气装置；隔离管道包括呈间隔设置的扩张管道段以及等截面管道段,扩张管道段的截面宽度沿远离等截面管道段的方向呈逐渐增大设置,等截面管道段的截面宽度沿远离扩张管道段的方向保持不变,扩张管道段与等截面管道段之间贯设有进气口；供气装置包括高纯气源和连接管道,连接管道的两端分别连通至进气口以及高纯气源；其中,所述扩张管道段连通至高清洁腔内,所述等截面管道段连通至次清洁腔内。等截面管道段内截面宽度不变,使得流入等截面管道段内的气流量增加,提高隔离管道的抑制效果,而无需加大气流量,且压强低,提高光束的透过率。(The invention provides a dynamic gas isolation device and extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment, wherein the dynamic gas isolation device comprises an isolation pipeline and a gas supply device; the isolation pipeline comprises expansion pipeline sections and equal-section pipeline sections which are arranged at intervals, the section width of each expansion pipeline section is gradually increased along the direction far away from the equal-section pipeline section, the section width of each equal-section pipeline section is kept unchanged along the direction far away from the expansion pipeline section, and an air inlet is arranged between each expansion pipeline section and the equal-section pipeline section in a penetrating manner; the gas supply device comprises a high-purity gas source and a connecting pipeline, and two ends of the connecting pipeline are respectively communicated to the gas inlet and the high-purity gas source; the expansion pipeline section is communicated into the high cleaning cavity, and the uniform-section pipeline section is communicated into the secondary cleaning cavity. The width of the inner section of the equal-section pipeline section is not changed, so that the gas flow flowing into the equal-section pipeline section is increased, the inhibiting effect of the isolation pipeline is improved, the gas flow does not need to be increased, the pressure is low, and the transmittance of light beams is improved.)

1. A dynamic gas barrier, comprising:

the isolation pipeline comprises expansion pipeline sections and uniform-section pipeline sections which are arranged at intervals, wherein the section width of each expansion pipeline section is gradually increased along the direction far away from the uniform-section pipeline section, the section width of each uniform-section pipeline section is kept unchanged along the direction far away from the expansion pipeline section, and an air inlet is arranged between each expansion pipeline section and the uniform-section pipeline section in a penetrating manner; and the number of the first and second groups,

the gas supply device comprises a high-purity gas source and a connecting pipeline, and two ends of the connecting pipeline are respectively communicated to the gas inlet and the high-purity gas source;

the expansion pipeline section is communicated into the high cleaning cavity, and the uniform-section pipeline section is communicated into the secondary cleaning cavity.

2. The dynamic gas barrier apparatus of claim 1, wherein the barrier conduit further comprises a buffer segment at an end of the constant cross-section conduit segment, wherein the buffer segment has a gradually increasing cross-sectional width in a direction away from the constant cross-section conduit segment.

3. The dynamic gas barrier apparatus of claim 1, wherein an acceleration structure is disposed within the connecting conduit, the acceleration structure configured to increase a flow rate of gas within the connecting conduit.

4. The dynamic gas barrier apparatus of claim 3, wherein said connecting conduit comprises a laval conduit section, a narrow throat is formed in the middle of said laval conduit section, the cross-sectional diameters of said laval conduit section on both sides of said narrow throat are gradually increased in a direction away from said narrow throat, both ends of said laval conduit section are respectively connected to said high purity gas source and said gas inlet, and said laval conduit section forms said accelerating structure.

5. The dynamic gas barrier of claim 4, wherein said connecting conduit further comprises an interface section, said interface section being disposed between said Laval conduit section and said gas inlet, said interface section having a cross-sectional diameter that increases in a direction away from said Laval conduit section.

6. The dynamic gas barrier of claim 5, wherein the inner sidewall of the interface section is arcuate.

7. The dynamic gas barrier apparatus of claim 1, wherein the gas inlet is provided in plurality, and the plurality of gas inlets are spaced apart along a circumferential direction of the barrier tube;

the air supply device is provided with a plurality of corresponding air inlets.

8. The dynamic gas barrier apparatus of claim 7, wherein there are two of said gas inlets, said two gas inlets being symmetrically disposed along an axis of said barrier conduit;

the air supply device is provided with two corresponding air inlets.

9. The dynamic gas barrier apparatus of claim 1, wherein the barrier tube is circular or rectangular in cross-section.

10. An extreme ultraviolet lithography apparatus, comprising:

a high cleaning chamber;

the secondary cleaning cavity is internally provided with an air release source; and the number of the first and second groups,

a dynamic gas isolation device disposed between the high cleaning chamber and the secondary cleaning chamber, the dynamic gas isolation device being as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 9.

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of photoetching, in particular to a dynamic gas isolation device and extreme ultraviolet photoetching equipment.

Background

Extreme ultraviolet lithography is the mainstream lithography technology for nodes of 7nm and below. The extreme ultraviolet lithography adopts extreme ultraviolet light with the wavelength of 13.5 nm. Since air and almost all refractive optical materials have a strong absorption for Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) radiation at a wavelength of 13.5nm, the interior of an EUV lithography machine needs to be set up in a vacuum environment. The EUV illumination optical system, the imaging optical system, the mask stage, the workpiece stage and other component systems are all arranged in corresponding vacuum chambers. The vacuum chambers are communicated with each other due to the transmission requirement of the extreme ultraviolet light beam. The individual components or systems have different requirements for the cleanliness of the vacuum environment, for example: the imaging optical system and the illumination optical system have the highest requirement on the cleanliness, the mask table has the second requirement on the cleanliness, and the workpiece table has low requirement on the cleanliness. Therefore, a dynamic gas isolation device (called a dynamic gas lock) must be established between a vacuum environment with high cleanliness and a vacuum environment with sub-cleanliness so as to isolate the vacuum environments with two different vacuum requirements.

The clean air flow that lets in the dynamic gas lock flows to high clean vacuum chamber and low clean vacuum chamber respectively, and the air flow that flows to low clean vacuum chamber can restrain the transmission of pollutant to high clean vacuum chamber. In the prior art, convergent pipelines are used for pollution gas isolation, and clean gas with larger gas flow is used for pollution control. As the gas flow increases, the internal flow field of the dynamic gas lock can reach sonic or supersonic speed. The sonic flow maintains the sonic velocity in the convergent tube; the velocity of the supersonic flow in the convergent tube is continuously reduced to the speed of sound; meanwhile, the convergent pipeline is not beneficial to clean gas flowing to a low-clean vacuum environment, and the use efficiency of the clean gas is reduced. Are not favorable for further improving the suppression efficiency of the polluted gas. Meanwhile, the continuous increase of the gas pressure in the convergence pipeline can reduce the transmittance of the EUV beam and influence the exposure power. When the total pressure of the gas is high, the pressure of the gas at the outlet of the convergent tube is higher than the pressure outside the tube, the gas is in a supercritical working state, and rapid expansion can occur outside the tube, so that the instability and temperature change of the gas flow can be caused, the nonuniformity of the EUV beam and the thermal deformation of the surface of the silicon wafer can be influenced, and the exposure quality can be further influenced.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention mainly aims to provide a dynamic gas isolation device and extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment, and aims to solve the problem that the gas use efficiency of the dynamic gas isolation device is not high.

To achieve the above object, the present invention provides a dynamic gas isolation apparatus, comprising:

the isolation pipeline comprises expansion pipeline sections and equal-section pipeline sections which are arranged at intervals, the section width of each expansion pipeline section is gradually increased along the direction far away from the equal-section pipeline section, the section width of each equal-section pipeline section is kept unchanged along the direction far away from the expansion pipeline section, and an air inlet is arranged between each expansion pipeline section and the equal-section pipeline section in a penetrating manner; and the number of the first and second groups,

the gas supply device comprises a high-purity gas source and a connecting pipeline, wherein two ends of the connecting pipeline are respectively communicated to the gas inlet and the high-purity gas source;

wherein, the expansion pipeline section is communicated to the high cleaning cavity, and the equal section pipeline section is communicated to the secondary cleaning cavity.

Optionally, the isolation pipeline further comprises a buffer section arranged at the end part of the uniform-section pipeline section, and the width of the section of the buffer section is gradually increased along the direction away from the uniform-section pipeline section.

Optionally, an acceleration structure is arranged in the connecting pipeline, and the acceleration structure is used for increasing the gas flow velocity in the connecting pipeline.

Optionally, the connecting pipe includes a laval pipe section, a narrow throat is formed in the middle of the laval pipe section, the diameters of the cross sections of the laval pipe section on the two sides of the narrow throat are gradually increased along the direction away from the narrow throat, the two ends of the laval pipe section are respectively communicated to the high-purity air source and the air inlet, and the laval pipe section forms an accelerating structure.

Optionally, the connecting pipe section still includes the handing-over section, and the handing-over section is located between laval pipeline section and the air inlet, and the cross-sectional diameter of handing-over section is the crescent setting along the direction of keeping away from laval pipeline section.

Optionally, the inner side wall of the cross-connecting section is arc-shaped.

Optionally, a plurality of air inlets are arranged at intervals along the circumferential direction of the isolation pipeline;

the air supply device is provided with a plurality of corresponding air inlets.

Optionally, two air inlets are arranged, and the two air inlets are symmetrically arranged along the axis of the isolation pipeline;

the number of the air supply devices is two corresponding to the air inlets.

Optionally, the cross section of the isolation pipeline is circular or rectangular.

The present invention also provides an extreme ultraviolet lithography apparatus comprising:

a high cleaning chamber;

the secondary cleaning cavity is internally provided with an air release source; and the number of the first and second groups,

and the dynamic gas isolation device is arranged between the high cleaning cavity and the secondary cleaning cavity and is the dynamic gas isolation device.

In the technical scheme provided by the invention, the isolation pipeline comprises an expansion pipeline section and an equal-section pipeline section, the expansion pipeline section is communicated into the high-cleaning cavity, the equal-section pipeline section is communicated into the secondary cleaning cavity, gas is supplied into the isolation pipeline through a high-purity gas source and a connecting pipeline, one part of the gas flows into the expansion pipeline section, the other part of the gas flows into the equal-section pipeline section, and the polluted gas in the secondary cleaning cavity is inhibited from flowing into the high-cleaning cavity from the isolation pipeline; meanwhile, the expansion pipeline section ensures that the continuous contraction light beam passes through, and the width of the inner section of the equal-section pipeline section is unchanged, so that the air flow flowing into the equal-section pipeline section is increased, the inhibition effect of the isolation pipeline is improved, the air flow does not need to be increased, the pressure is low, and the transmittance of the light beam is improved.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic plan view of a dynamic gas barrier according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 2 is an enlarged schematic view of a portion a in fig. 1.

The reference numbers illustrate:

reference numerals	Name (R)	Reference numerals	Name (R)
				100	Dynamic gas isolation device	22	Connecting pipe
11	Expanded pipe section	221	Narrow throat
				12	Constant cross-section pipeline section	222	Connecting section
13	Air inlet	200	High cleaning cavity
				14	Buffer section	300	Secondary cleaning cavity
21	High-purity gas source

Detailed Description

In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention more apparent, the present invention is described in further detail below with reference to specific embodiments and the accompanying drawings.

It should be noted that, if directional indication is involved in the embodiment of the present invention, the directional indication is only used for explaining the relative positional relationship, the motion situation, and the like between the components in a certain posture, and if the certain posture is changed, the directional indication is changed accordingly.

In addition, if there is a description of "first", "second", etc. in an embodiment of the present invention, the description of "first", "second", etc. is for descriptive purposes only and is not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance or implicitly indicating the number of technical features indicated. Thus, a feature defined as "first" or "second" may explicitly or implicitly include at least one such feature. In addition, technical solutions between various embodiments may be combined with each other, but must be realized by a person skilled in the art, and when the technical solutions are contradictory or cannot be realized, such a combination should not be considered to exist, and is not within the protection scope of the present invention.

Extreme ultraviolet lithography is the mainstream lithography technology for nodes of 7nm and below. The extreme ultraviolet lithography adopts extreme ultraviolet light with the wavelength of 13.5 nm. Since air and almost all refractive optical materials have a strong absorption for Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) radiation at a wavelength of 13.5nm, the interior of an EUV lithography machine needs to be set up in a vacuum environment. The EUV illumination optical system, the imaging optical system, the mask stage, the workpiece stage and other component systems are all arranged in corresponding vacuum chambers. The vacuum chambers are communicated with each other due to the transmission requirement of the extreme ultraviolet light beam. The individual components or systems have different requirements for the cleanliness of the vacuum environment, for example: the imaging optical system and the illumination optical system have the highest requirement on the cleanliness, the mask table has the second requirement on the cleanliness, and the workpiece table has low requirement on the cleanliness. Therefore, a dynamic gas isolation device (called a dynamic gas lock) must be established between a vacuum environment with high cleanliness and a vacuum environment with sub-cleanliness so as to isolate the vacuum environments with two different vacuum requirements.

The clean air flow that lets in the dynamic gas lock flows to high clean vacuum chamber and low clean vacuum chamber respectively, and the air flow that flows to low clean vacuum chamber can restrain the transmission of pollutant to high clean vacuum chamber. In the prior art, convergent pipelines are used for pollution gas isolation, and clean gas with larger gas flow is used for pollution control. As the gas flow increases, the internal flow field of the dynamic gas lock can reach sonic or supersonic speed. The sonic flow maintains the sonic velocity in the convergent tube; the velocity of the supersonic flow in the convergent tube is continuously reduced to the speed of sound; meanwhile, the convergent pipeline is not beneficial to clean gas flowing to a low-clean vacuum environment, and the use efficiency of the clean gas is reduced. Are not favorable for further improving the suppression efficiency of the polluted gas. Meanwhile, the continuous increase of the gas pressure in the convergence pipeline can reduce the transmittance of the EUV beam and influence the exposure power. When the total pressure of the gas is high, the pressure of the gas at the outlet of the convergent tube is higher than the pressure outside the tube, the gas is in a supercritical working state, and rapid expansion can occur outside the tube, so that the instability and temperature change of the gas flow can be caused, the nonuniformity of the EUV beam and the thermal deformation of the surface of the silicon wafer can be influenced, and the exposure quality can be further influenced.

The invention provides an extreme ultraviolet lithography apparatus, which comprises a dynamic gas isolation device, and the protection scope of the invention is the protection scope of the invention as long as the extreme ultraviolet lithography apparatus comprises the dynamic gas isolation device, wherein, fig. 1 to fig. 2 are embodiments provided by the invention.

Referring to fig. 1, the present invention provides a dynamic gas isolation device 100, which includes an isolation pipeline and a gas supply device; the isolation pipeline comprises expansion pipeline sections 11 and uniform-section pipeline sections 12 which are arranged at intervals, the section width of each expansion pipeline section 11 is gradually increased along the direction far away from the uniform-section pipeline section 12, the section width of each uniform-section pipeline section 12 is kept unchanged along the direction far away from the expansion pipeline section 11, and an air inlet 13 penetrates between each expansion pipeline section 11 and each uniform-section pipeline section 12; the gas supply device comprises a high-purity gas source 21 and a connecting pipeline 22, and two ends of the connecting pipeline 22 are respectively communicated to the gas inlet 13 and the high-purity gas source 21; wherein the expanded pipe section 11 communicates into the high cleaning chamber 200 and the constant cross-section pipe section 12 communicates into the secondary cleaning chamber 300.

In the technical scheme provided by the invention, the isolation pipeline comprises an expansion pipeline section 11 and an equal-section pipeline section 12, the expansion pipeline section 11 is communicated into the high-cleaning cavity 200, the equal-section pipeline section 12 is communicated into the secondary cleaning cavity 300, gas is supplied into the isolation pipeline through a high-purity gas source 21 and a connecting pipeline 22, one part of the gas flows into the expansion pipeline section 11, the other part of the gas flows into the equal-section pipeline section 12, and the polluted gas in the secondary cleaning cavity 300 is inhibited from flowing into the high-cleaning cavity 200 from the isolation pipeline; meanwhile, the expanded pipeline section 11 ensures the passing of the continuous contracted light beam, and the width of the inner section of the equal-section pipeline section 12 is unchanged, so that the gas flow flowing into the equal-section pipeline section 12 is increased, the inhibition effect of the isolation pipeline is improved, the gas flow does not need to be increased, the pressure is low, and the transmittance of the light beam is improved.

Further, in order to alleviate the expansion of the clean gas at the outlet, the isolation pipeline further comprises a buffer section 14 arranged at the end of the equal-section pipeline section 12, and the width of the section of the buffer section 14 is gradually increased along the direction far away from the equal-section pipeline section 12. The buffer section 14 enables the gas output from the equal-section pipeline section 12 to expand for a buffer period, relieves the gas expansion phenomenon caused by the fact that the pressure of the gas in the equal-section pipeline section 12 is higher than that of the secondary cleaning cavity 300, and relieves the influence of the gas on the temperature of parts in the vicinity of the dynamic gas isolation device 100.

In addition, an acceleration structure is provided in the connecting duct 22, and the acceleration structure is used to increase the flow velocity of the gas in the connecting duct 22. The gas in the connecting duct 22 is accelerated to a supersonic speed, and since the cross-sectional width of the constant cross-sectional duct section 12 is constant, the gas is accelerated to a supersonic speed before entering the constant cross-sectional duct section 12, thereby ensuring that the gas flow to the secondary cleaning chamber 300 is supersonic.

The acceleration structure may be provided in various embodiments, for example, a device such as a high-pressure shower head is provided in the connecting duct 22, and the gas in the connecting duct 22 is accelerated by a jet gas flow or the like.

Specifically, referring to fig. 2, in the present embodiment, the connecting pipe 22 includes a laval pipe section, a narrow throat 221 is formed in the middle of the laval pipe section, the diameters of the cross sections of the laval pipe section at the two sides of the narrow throat 221 are gradually increased along the direction away from the narrow throat 221, the two ends of the laval pipe section are respectively connected to the high purity gas source 21 and the gas inlet 13, and the laval pipe section forms the accelerating structure. Through the Laval pipeline section, the speed of the airflow is changed due to the change of the spray cross section area, so that the airflow is accelerated to the supersonic speed from the subsonic speed; when the gas output by the high-purity gas source 21 passes through the Laval pipeline section, the gas movement follows the principle that when the fluid moves in the pipe, the flow velocity at the small part of the section is high, and the flow velocity at the large part of the section is low, so that the gas is accelerated continuously. When the narrow throat 221 is reached, the velocity has exceeded the speed of sound. The transonic fluid does not follow the principle of large flow velocity at small cross section and small flow velocity at large cross section during movement, but the opposite is true, and the larger the cross section is, the faster the flow velocity is. The velocity of the gas is further accelerated until a supersonic velocity is reached.

Further, the connecting pipe 22 further includes a connection section 222, the connection section 222 is disposed between the laval pipe section and the air inlet 13, and a cross-sectional diameter of the connection section 222 is gradually increased along a direction away from the laval pipe section 13. The stability of gas flow can be guaranteed, on one hand, the loss of speed during flow is reduced, and on the other hand, the temperature change caused by gas expansion is relieved.

Further, in the present embodiment, the inner sidewall of the connecting section 222 is arc-shaped. The transition is more stable. It should be noted that the specific arc diameter is adjusted according to the structure of the dynamic gas isolation device 100 and the high purity gas source 21.

On the other hand, in order to ensure the use effect of the dynamic gas isolation device 100, a plurality of gas inlets 13 are arranged, and the plurality of gas inlets 13 are arranged at intervals along the circumferential direction of the isolation pipeline; the air supply device is provided in plurality corresponding to the air inlet 13. Thereby ensuring the stability of the gas flow and the sufficiency of the gas and ensuring the normal use of the dynamic gas isolation device 100.

It should be noted that the arrangement of the air inlets 13 can be selected according to actual conditions, in the embodiment provided by the present invention, two air inlets 13 are arranged, and the two air inlets 13 are symmetrically arranged along the axis of the isolation pipeline; two air supply devices are arranged corresponding to the air inlet 13.

In addition, the section of the isolation pipeline has various embodiments, and the section of the isolation pipeline is arranged in a circular or rectangular shape. For a conical beam, the dynamic gas isolation device 100 employs a circular cross-section; for a rectangular beam, dynamic gas barrier 100 takes a rectangular cross-section.

The present invention further provides an euv lithography apparatus, including the above dynamic gas isolation device 100, and the euv lithography apparatus includes all technical features of the above dynamic gas isolation device 100, that is, has technical effects brought by all the technical features, and will not be described herein again.

The euv lithographic apparatus further comprises a high cleaning chamber 200 and a secondary cleaning chamber 300; an air discharge source 3 is provided in the secondary cleaning chamber 300.

The above-mentioned embodiments are intended to illustrate the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention in further detail, and it should be understood that the above-mentioned embodiments are only exemplary embodiments of the present invention, and are not intended to limit the present invention, and any modifications, equivalents, improvements and the like made within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the protection scope of the present invention.