Biggest gap is in EDA because tools are not optimized for DSA, but work is under way to make DSA commercially viable.
By Mark LaPedus
The industry is aggressively pursuing directed self-assembly (DSA) as an alternative patterning technology for future chip designs.
DSA, which enables fine pitches through the use of block copolymers, is in the R&D pilot line stage today. The fab tools, process flows and materials are basically ready, but there are still several challenges to bring the technology from the lab to the fab.
Perhaps the most glaring gap involves the ability to design chips around DSA. The existing EDA tools are not optimized for DSA, leaving many skeptics to ask a simple question: Can chipmakers design real and useful chips around DSA? Today, the answer is no or maybe someday.
Still, the lack of a design methodology opens up the door for new innovation and the emergence of a new field—design-for-DSA (DFD). In fact, there are some early methodologies surfacing for DFD. One idea is to tweak the current EDA tools for DSA. Another concept is to use 1D layouts. In another approach, Stanford University is developing a methodology using an alphabet soup of characters.
And not to be outdone, Cadence is working with GlobalFoundries to devise yet another approach. The technology, called Squish, uses an underlying classification engine and topological patterns as a means to enable IC designs using DSA, said Luigi Capodieci, director of DFM/CAD and an R&D fellow at GlobalFoundries.
“We have developed the first implementation of DSA modeling,” Capodieci said. “It’s a different way to look at physical design. The introduction of Squish topological patterns is a new way to look at how polygons and shapes come together. We can also enumerate how the patterns come together in a way we can match them.”
To make DSA viable, Capodieci also said that the EDA industry must look at the problem differently and develop an entirely new design methodology. “We need innovation,” he said. “We need a fundamental methodological change in how we put together the physical design.”
Assembling a design
DSA is not a next-generation lithography (NGL) tool per se. It’s more of a complementary and double-patterning scheme. There are two basic types of DSA methods: graphoepitaxy and chemical epitaxy. In graphoepitaxy, a guide is patterned using existing lithography tools. Using a track, the guide is spin-coated, rinsed and spin-coated again with copolymers. The copolymers self-assemble and the guide is then etched. In chemical epitaxy, self-assembly is guided by lithographically determined chemical patterns.
Over the last year, Albany Nanotech, CEA-Leti, IBM and IMEC have set up 300mm R&D pilot lines for DSA. Major chipmakers are doing their R&D work within these organizations and have shown their initial test structures using DSA.
It’s one thing to show intricate patterns and test structures, but it’s an entirely different matter to design chips around the technology. “It’s not good enough to have SEM pictures and show them at a conference,” said Lars Liebmann, a distinguished engineer for design technology co-optimization at IBM. “I can’t do anything with that. To really get your foot into the door you have to demonstrate some circuit-relevant patterns. If you show me a SEM, also show me a circuit pattern where a designer would say: ‘I can do something with that.’”
To satisfy the design community, DSA must meet some basic criteria. “You have to be able to integrate this patterning approach into a real CMOS flow. You have to demonstrate etch selectivity. And any new patterning technique should come with a set of compact models,” Leibmann said.
And, of course, there must be a robust design methodology and EDA tools. “The tools are not ready for DSA,” said Juan Rey, senior director of engineering at Mentor Graphics. “Essentially, the DSA community has developed a credible path for some layers. However, there is quite a bit of extensive research needed for full-chip-level development.”
All told, DSA still remains in the early stages of development and not ready for prime time. “We’ve seen some outstanding first steps in DSA,” Rey said. “But it’s pretty clear that more progress is required. The technology is still immature.”
For some, the design-for-DSA debate centers around one question. “The question is not whether the EDA tools ready,” said GlobalFoundries’ Capodieci. “The question is what are the EDA tools required for DSA?”
One of the prevailing ideas is to use a complementary lithography approach as outlined by Intel. First, poly and metal lines are arranged into 1D gridded arrays. Then, a cut step is done to form a specified pattern. All told, DSA could enable lines and spaces, contact hole shrinks and even patterning a sea of fins.
Using a variant of complementary lithography, IBM has demonstrated the ability to pattern 29nm-pitch fins, which are etched onto a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate. For DSA in general, IBM is using its own, in-house tools as well as conventional technology, said Kafai Lai, a senior scientist/engineer at IBM. “Our computational infrastructure basically builds upon conventional computational lithography platform. Many existing technical elements such as mask decomposition and coloring algorithms, model-based sub-resolution assist features (SRAF) and printable assist features (PRAF), source mask optimization (SMO), DSA optical proximity correction (DSA OPC), OPC verification, are still the building blocks of the DSA infrastructure. The optimum flow for DSA implementation depends on the feature types or the process layers of concern,” Lai said in a recent paper at SPIE.
“We have developed a set of computational lithography tools to enable us to evaluate the application of DSA to full-chip patterning. These toolsets involve new DSA-specific components such as DSA mask decomposition for guiding patterns, DSA-specific OPC or mask optimization and DSA-OPC verification. A fast DSA compact model is the backbone of these new CL components and we have reported such a fast DSA model for vias. A similar compact model for DSA L/S is under development now,” he added.
In any case, 1D layouts may enable DSA-friendly designs, but chipmakers must adhere to some rigid and restrictive design rules. “The designers will say I’m in left field, but I really think we need to spend more time working on the grid approach,” said Christopher Bencher, member of the technical staff at Applied Materials.
Using the 1D layout approach, memory makers could be the early adopters for DSA. For logic, Bencher and others have proposed a scheme that enables a sea of fins for use in future finFET designs. “For example, in the chemical epitaxy approach, you make holes everywhere to start with. Later, you will do a lithographic step, where you select which holes you want to keep and which ones you want to get rid of,” he said.
The downside to this approach is the inability to obtain a good aerial image of the holes. Still, Bencher said the 1D layout approach has several advantages over the rival alphabet-soup method. In this approach, a designer has the ability to choose a collection of shapes to develop a design. “As you try and stuff more and more (shapes on a pattern), the amount of positional error starts to go up,” he added.
The 1D gridded array approach also has some challenges. “You have to demonstrate some form of self-aligned trimming,” said IBM’s Leibmann. “Otherwise, in tight pitch gratings, it’s not useful at all because you can’t customize it. There is also no tool with the overlay capability to actually map that selectively without either damaging the fins you want to keep or residuals from the fins you want to erase.”
For this and other reasons, it’s unclear if the foundry industry can deploy this methodology. “Gridded with ultra-regular designs won’t work for us,” said Richard Farrell, a principal engineer at GlobalFoundries. “The biggest problem is that we incur a 3% to 5% area penalty for a gridded design, which is something we can’t give up.”
In the 1D layout approach, the IC industry would still require a new class of tools from the established EDA companies or startups willing to take a gamble. “This is possible, but you have to have a dedicated group of people with some capital who are willing to think differently,” said GlobalFoundries’ Capodieci. “But if we just wait for the commercial opportunity to present itself, we will miss the boat.”
Working with Cadence, GlobalFoundries proposes Squish, a design-for-DSA methodology that appears to combine the alphabet-soup approach and today’s pattern matching/classification technology. “This is like doing a Google search,” Capodieci said. “We actually create artificial structures in which patterns can come together.”
For example, the Squish methodology can create 1,716 or so different configurations or representations for a proposed IC layout. “We have the tools we need for classifying geometric and physical designs,” he said. “In literally a few hours, we can analyze a full-chip layout.”
Once this or another methodology is proven viable, the next step is to actually design and make a chip using DSA. “The next challenge for the industry is to process a couple of layers of a processor core using DSA,” he said. “We need a call for action.”