Attachment A NIST Requirements.docx

NIST REQUIREMENTS:

TABLETOP CONTACT ALIGNER

I. Background/Scope In support of the CHIPS Act, the National Institute of Standards and Technology is acquiring nano fabrication and nano characterization equipment that will address the major metrology research and development grand challenges for the reliable production of next-generation microelectronic devices.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)/Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST) enables science and industry by providing essential measurement methods, instrumentation, and standards to support all phases of nanotechnology development from discovery to production. The Nanofabrication Operations Group of the CNST has the mission of advancing measurement science by developing novel nanofabrication and nanomanufacturing techniques. NIST’s CNST NanoFab seeks to acquire a tabletop contact aligner for lithographically exposing semiconductor substrates. This instrument will be installed into a class 100 multi-user CNST NanoFab cleanroom facility. The clean room facility is located at the NIST Gaithersburg, MD site and is used as a shared resource that is accessible to researchers from industry, academia, NIST, and other government agencies. The added capability will allow us to lithographically expose semiconductive and other types of substrates, ranging in dimensions from small pieces up to semispec 150 mm diameter wafers. The tabletop contact aligner allows for flexibility in exposing irregular sized substrates, as well as standard, semispec silicon wafers. This capability will be available in the CNST NanoFab as a resource accessible to NIST and external researchers.

NIST’s CNST NanoFab seeks to acquire a tabletop contact aligner for lithographically exposing semiconductor substrates. In support of a variety of NIST mission critical programs that are coupled to the CHIPS metrology R&D component, this system will be used as a lithography exposure tool for contact and proximity patterning of micron-scale features into photoresist on a variety of substrates. The CNST NanoFab has numerous NIST missioncritical and external projects, including the NISTonachip nanophotonic and nanoelectronic efforts, that utilize nonstandard sized substrates ranging from a few square millimeters up to standard 150 mm diameter silicon wafers. The tabletop aligner system shall provide flexibility of processing nonstandard substrates by allowing rapid turnaround of lithographic exposures, leveltolevel alignment, and flood exposures on a variety of substrates. The versatile tabletop aligner system is a crucial component for NIST researchers to reliably deliver state-of-the-art, standard reference test structures. The versatile tabletop contact aligner system shall accommodate substrate sizes up to 150 mm semispec silicon substrates and photomasks up to semispec 7inch squares. This new contact aligner system will be used to simplify and expand our capabilities of easily aligning and lithographically exposing nonstandard sized substrates, including small mm sized samples. The overall performance and the success of the numerous existing and future NIST mission critical projects carried out in the CNST NanoFab will depend critically on the ability to reproducibly align and lithographically expose semiconductor substrates.

II. Minimum Requirements The system shall meet or exceed the following technical specifications identified below. All items must be new. Used or remanufactured equipment will not be considered for award. Experimental, prototype, or custom items will not be considered. The use of “gray market” components not authorized for sale in the U.S. by the proposer is not acceptable. All line items shall be shipped in the original manufacturer’s packaging and include all original documentation and software, when applicable.

Minimum requirements of the tabletop contact aligner system:

1. The tabletop contact aligner system shall have a 500 W exposure system with constant intensity and constant power regulation capability.

2. The exposure spectrum and optics of the tabletop contact aligner system shall be capable of wavelength ranges from 220 nm to 260 nm and from 365 nm to 400 nm.

3. Control of exposure time of the tabletop contact aligner system shall cover the range from less than or equal to 0.5 seconds to greater than or equal to 900 seconds with 0.1 second resolution.

4. The beam collimation of the tabletop contact aligner system shall have a half-angle divergence of less than or equal to 2 degrees.

5. The tabletop contact aligner system shall be capable of performing proximity gap exposures with repeatable photomask to substrate distance.

6. The tabletop contact aligner system shall be capable of performing softcontact, hardcontact, and vacuum contact exposures with enduser adjustable mask-to-substrate pressures and have a nitrogen purge.

7. The tabletop contact aligner system illumination shall provide beam uniformity better than plus or minus 5 % over the 6-inch diameter exposure area.

8. The beam intensity of the tabletop contact aligner system shall be greater than or equal to 18 mW/cm2 at 365 nm and greater than or equal to 20 mW/cm2 at 400 nm.

9. The tabletop contact aligner system shall be able to expose 1 micrometer thick positive tone photoresist with a resolution of 1 micrometer or better.

10. The tabletop contact aligner system shall have vacuum chucks for the use of 5-inch square and 7-inch square photomasks.

11. The tabletop contact aligner system shall have vacuum chucks for piece parts from 5 mm by 5 mm square up to 2-inch square.

12. The tabletop contact aligner system shall have vacuum chucks for full semi-spec substrates with diameters of 100 mm and 150 mm.

13. All substrate chucks shall be capable of planarizing the substrate and the photomask.

14. The 100 mm and 150 mm substrate chucks shall accommodate back-side alignment capability.

15. The tabletop contact aligner system shall have an alignment system capable of fronttofront side of the wafer alignment and fronttoback side of the wafer alignment. The tabletop contact aligner system shall meet the following alignment specifications:

a. The alignment optics shall be comprised of dual-CCD cameras with dual viewing monitors.

b. The alignment optics shall have optical zoom up to a value greater than or equal to 500x.

c. For the front-side alignment, the minimum separation distance between the objectives shall be less than or equal to 0.5 inches.

d. For the front-side alignment, the alignment optics shall be capable of scanning the entire surface of a 7-inch square photomask.

e. Front-side alignment accuracy shall be better than plus or minus 1 micrometer.

f. Back-side alignment will be performed using IR illumination.

g. Back-side alignment accuracy shall be better than plus or minus 5 micrometers.

16. Back-side alignment accuracy shall be better than plus or minus 5 micrometers.

17. The tabletop contact aligner system shall have the following footprint:

a. The overall depth of the system shall not exceed 30 inches.

b. The overall width of the system shall not exceed 42 inches.

c. The overall height of the system shall not exceed 40 inches.

18. The electrical utility requirement for tabletop contact aligner system shall be standard US 110 Vac, 60 Hz supply configuration.

19. The tabletop contact aligner system shall be equipped with proper interlocks and UV shielding to prevent damage to the system and to ensure the safety of the operator during operation.

20. The tabletop contact aligner system shall be equipped with an input that NIST can use to prevent operation. NIST uses an equipment control system that allows only trained users access to equipment. This is configured to provide a relay closure upon activation.

21. The seller shell coordinate shipment and installation of the tabletop contact aligner system with the end user.

22. Vendor shall provide list of included parts in recommended spares kit. If vendor offers different levels of recommended spares kits, provide information and pricing about all of them.

III. Delivery The tabletop contact aligner system shall be received within 4 months after award of the contract. Delivery shall be FOB Destination (or equivalent terms, such as INCOTERMS Delivered Duties Paid). The CNST NanoFab will require 30 days from delivery to site the system and connect facilities. Vendor is responsible for tool startup, demonstration of specifications, and training including travel, labor, or any other expense. During tool startup, vendor is responsible for running qualification wafers, working with NIST engineer, to demonstrate process capability.

FOB Destination means: The contractor shall pack and mark the shipment in conformance with carrier requirements, deliver the shipment in good order and condition to the point of delivery specified in the purchase order, be responsible for any loss of and/or damage to the goods occurring before receipt and acceptance of the shipment by the consignee at the delivery point specified in the purchase order; and pay all charges to the specified point of delivery. The contractor shall deliver all Line Items to:

The National Institute of Standards and Technology 100 Bureau Drive, Building 215 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-1640

IV. Installation The seller shall provide an onsite install and process engineer for the installation and qualification of the tabletop contact aligner system and meet contract specifications no later than 30 days after delivery. Installation, at a minimum, shall include uncrating/unpackaging of all equipment, rigging, set-up and hook-up of the system, demonstration of all specifications, and removal of trash. Onsite installation and demonstration shall be done at NIST, (Gaithersburg, MD- Building 215).

V. Training The seller shall provide training on the tabletop contact aligner system for the end user. Training for up to 4 people shall be done at NIST at the time of installation. Training will include at least one day of detailed information to maintain, repair, and troubleshoot problems that can arise during normal operation.

VI. Inspection/Acceptance The tabletop contact aligner system shall meet or exceed the minimum specifications described above. The seller shall coordinate shipment of the tabletop contact aligner system with the end user.

Following vendor installation, testing of the tabletop contact aligner system will be performed onsite in the manner outlined below.

At the NIST CNST NanoFab, Semispec silicon wafers and 5 mm by 5 mm square pieces of silicon wafers will be processed in the following manner:

a) The wafers will be placed into a SC1 clean mixture, consisting of ammonium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide, for 10 minutes at 80 degrees Celsius.

b) Wafers will be rinsed in deionized (DI) water.

c) For processing of bare silicon substrates, the wafers will be placed into a roomtemperature dilute hydrofluoric acid solution to remove native oxides, and then water rinsed.

d) The wafers will then be placed into a SC2 clean mixture, consisting of hydrochloric acid and hydrogen peroxide, for 10 minutes at 80 degrees Celsius.

e) Substrates will be DI water rinsed and nitrogen dried.

f) Substrates will then be vapor primed in an automated HMDS oven.

g) Using our manual spinner resistcoaters, the substrates will then be coated with a positive tone, highresolution, highcontrast photoresist.

h) Substrates will be then exposed in the contact aligner using a photomask with test features down to 800 nm.

i) The substrates will then be loaded into the developed using a TMAHbased developer and then rinsed in de-ionized water and nitrogen dried.

j) Using optical and scanning electron microscopy, we will inspect that the photoresist was successfully developed in all regions, and that 800 nm features printed and resolved across the semispec silicon substrates.

To test the backside alignment, we (NIST CNST NanoFab staff) will utilize semispec, prime grade, double side polished wafers with 2 micrometers of thermal oxide and process them in the following manner:

a) The wafers will be placed into a SC1 clean mixture, consisting of ammonium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide, for 10 minutes at 80 degrees Celsius.

b) Wafers will be rinsed in deionized (DI) water.

c) The wafers will then be placed into a SC2 clean mixture, consisting of hydrochloric acid and hydrogen peroxide, for 10 minutes at 80 degrees Celsius.

d) Substrates will be DI water rinsed and nitrogen dried.

e) Substrates will then be vapor primed in an automated HMDS oven.

f) Using our manual spinner resistcoaters, the substrates will then be coated with a bilayer stack consisting of liftoff resist followed by a positive tone photoresist.

g) Substrates will be then exposed in the contact aligner using a photomask with test alignment crosses across the wafer. The crosses will be 1 mm long and 40 micrometers wide.

h) Substrates will be developed using a TMAHbased developer, then rinsed in deionized water and nitrogen dried.

i) We will then deposit and liftoff a metal stack consisting of 10 nm of titanium 100 nm of gold.

j) Substrates will then be vapor primed in an automated HMDS oven.

k) Using our manual spinner resistcoaters, the backside (unprocessed side) of the substrate will then be coated with a positive tone photoresist.

l) We will perform backside IRbased alignment and expose the substrate.

m) Substrates will be developed using a TMAHbased developer, then rinsed in deionized water and nitrogen dried.

n) The 2micrometer silicon dioxide layer will be etched down to the underlying silicon layer using the exposed and developed photoresist.

o) Subsequently, the wafer will be etched in the deep silicon etcher until reaching the oxide stop layer on the side where the alignment crosses reside.

p) Using optical microscopy, we will measure the alignment accuracy to ensure that the specifications are met.

An extended inspection/acceptance period of fourteen (14) days shall be required.

VII. Warranty The tabletop contact aligner system shall have a minimum of 1-year warranty from date of government acceptance. The vendor shall repair or replace at its cost, any defective items without any additional cost to the government including travel, labor, parts, or any other expense.

VIII. Payment Schedule The Contractor shall be paid, in accordance with Net 30-day payment terms, upon receipt and acceptance of a proper invoice, in accordance with the following schedule:

1. 100% after installation and acceptance by the TPOC of fully installed system.

2. The Government anticipates inspection will occur upon:

a. After the testing procedures set forth in this document have been completed.