The application of UV-LEDs to microlithography

Benefited by the progress of material science, Light-Emitting Diodes (LED) with UV-emitting have been produced successfully. Like other LEDs, UV-LEDs exhibit several advantages, such as energy conservation, long life, compact, and quick response. The UV-LED application to microlithography is attractive. In contrast to point light sources requiring lens to generate parallel light beams, an array of UV-LEDs can emit nearly parallel light beams easily. UV-LEDs only need 3 to 4 voltages to ignite, which is much lower than that required by mercury short arc lamps. The cost of using UV-LEDs is also much lower than current solutions. In this study, we used UV-LEDs as the light source in the laboratory lithography system. LEDs, whose emitting spectrum distributed between 370 to 410 nm mostly, were displaced on the bottom of a heat sink. Two 10-by-10 cm2 test masks, where the smallest pattern was 20 μm, were used to examine the resolution ability of this combination. Each light module was utilized to exposure photosensitized printed circuit board (PCB). After etching, the printed patterns were observed under microscope. The minimum reproducible feature size was 100 μm. Through the 4″ mask, the uniformity was decent, and could be improved by using LEDs from the same batch, collimator, or LED displacement optimization. In the future, standard g-line process can be performed, and further tests will be performed to check the limits of the UV-LED system. Based on these preliminary tests, it seems like the usage of UV-LEDs should be a feasible solution for microlithography. Copyright © 2008 by ASME.