Proximity Effects of Lithography and Etching in Submicron Processes

Proximity effects in projection optical lithography are becoming an increasingly critical issue as the continuing advance of VLSI technology demands smaller and denser circuit features. When the minimum feature size approaches the resolution limit of the imaging system, the proximity (i.e. feature size deviations which depend on the surrounding pattern configuration) can no longer be neglected, and are usually a complicated function of parameters in the projection optics and resist processing.