SPIE Advanced Lithography + Patterning

Imec is present at SPIE Advanced Lithography + Patterning 2026 with no less than 53 papers, of which 31 first-authored and 5 invited papers. With these papers, imec presents the progress made across the entire advanced‑patterning ecosystem, across EUV and high‑NA lithography, OPC and curvilinear design, resist and materials innovation, plasma and etch process optimization, metrology and inspection breakthroughs, and the co‑optimization of imaging, patterning, and device integration for future logic and memory nodes.

HIGHLIGHTS

Unraveling a new dose reduction strategy for metal oxide resist by the atmospheric environment of the post exposure bake
Ivan Pollentier¹, Fabian Holzmeier¹, Hyo Seon Suh¹, Kevin M. Dorney^1 
1imec (Belgium)

Chemical origins of environmental modifications to the lithographic chemistry of MOR resists
Kevin M. Dorney¹, Ivan Pollentier¹, Roberto Fallica¹, Fabian Holzmeier¹, Hyo Seon Suh¹, Danilo De Simone¹, John Petersen^1
1imec (Belgium)

Imec contributions

Advanced OPC modeling and impact on OPC for dry resist by using low-n mask
Dongbo Xu¹, Werner Gillijns², Qinglin Zeng³, Shruti Jambaldinni⁴, Anuja De Silva⁴, Germain Fenger^3 
1Siemens EDA (Belgium), ²imec (Belgium), ³Siemens EDA (United States), ⁴Lam Research Belgium BV (Belgium)

Wafer-scale maskless process to fabricate sub-20 nm silicon nitride nanopores for ultrafiltration
Cian A. Cummins¹, Ayesha Walikar¹, Bert Du Bois¹, Lander Verstraete¹, Hyo Seon Suh¹, Emma Vecchio¹, Florian De Samblanx¹, Tadeo Alcerreca Valdez², Christian J. Garcia Abrego³, Swathi Suran³, Jeroen Vollenbroek^2,3,4, Tugrul Irmak², Fokko Wieringa³, Karin Gerritsen², Simone Severi¹, Ashesh Ray Chaudhuri^1 
1imec (Belgium), ²Univ. Medical Ctr. Utrecht (Netherlands), ³imec (Netherlands), ⁴Univ. Twente (Netherlands)

Stitching: High NA results
Natalia V. Davydova¹, Vincent Wiaux², Ataklti Weldeslassie², Soobin Hwang², Tatiana Kovalevich², Airat Galiullin¹, Marcel Beckers¹, Jad Haddad², Cyrus E. Tabery³, Adam Lyons³,  Jeremy Chen⁴, Christoph Hennerkes³, Daniel Wilson^1
1ASML Netherlands B.V. (Netherlands), ²imec (Belgium), ³ASML (United States), ⁴ASML Leuven (Belgium) 

Imaging roadmap for high-NA EUV: Paving the way to single-patterning of metal logic for future nodes
Nick Pellens¹, Joern-Holger Franke¹, Inhwan Lee¹, Vicky Philipsen¹, Patrick Wong¹, Mahtab Sangghaleh¹, Eric Hendrickx¹, Kurt Ronse¹, Philippe Leray¹, Pieter Vanelderen¹, Ryoung-Han Kim¹, Geert Vandenberghe^1
1imec (Belgium)

PFAS-Free 193 immersion resist for 28 nm node metal-1 Layer: Electrical performance meets POR quality
Bojja Aditya Reddy¹, Jorge Ivan Rossero¹, Nicola Nadia Kissoon¹, Keita Kato², Satomi Takahashi², Hideaki Tsubaki², Danilo De Simone^{1  
1}imec (Belgium), ²FUJIFILM Corp. (Japan)

Sub-nm depth sensitivity for laterally recessed SiGe in CFET structures using micro-spot x-ray fluorescence (Invited Paper)
Jenna Kim¹, Janusz Bogdanowicz¹, Andrea Mingardi¹, Pallavi P. Gowda¹, Karen Stiers¹, Satoshi Murakami², Markus Kuhn², Hong-Cheon Yang¹, Min-Soo Kim¹, Serge Biesemans¹, Philippe Leray¹, Anne-Laure Charley^1 
1imec (Belgium), ²Rigaku Corp. (Japan)

Advances in single-layer gate and triple-layer gate EUV patterning for 300mm silicon quantum dot spin qubit devices (Invited Paper)
Johan De Backer¹, Yannick Hermans¹, Sofie Beyne¹, Clement Godfrin¹, Stefan Kubicek¹, Shuchi Kaushik¹, Andrea Mingardi¹, Diziana Vangoidsenhoven¹, Danny Wan¹, Kristiaan de Greve^1
1imec (Belgium)

Multi-bias focal (MBF) contrast metrology and applications
Edouard A. M. L. Duriau¹, Cyrus E. Tabery², Joern-Holger Franke³, Jo Finders^4
1ASML (Netherlands), ²ASML (United States), ³imec (Belgium), ⁴ASML Netherlands B.V. (Netherlands)

Plasma surface treatments of amorphous carbon layer to enhance MOR adhesion
Sunjin Lee¹, Rémi Vallat¹, Laurent Souriau¹, Bhavishya Chowrira Poovanna¹, Roberto Fallica^1
1imec (Belgium)

Twenty heads are better than one: Scalable microAFM for high-throughput metrology and inspection
Leo Gabriel¹, Zhenle Cao¹, Qianshu Wang¹, Alain Moussa², Janusz Bogdanowicz², David Morris^1
1ICSPI Corp. (Canada), ²imec (Belgium)

Depth of focus enhancement in high-NA curvilinear logic metal designs
Hazem S. Mesilhy¹, Pervaiz Kareem¹, Kenichi Miyaguchi¹, Xuelong Shi¹, Doyun Kim¹, Yasser Sherazi¹, Ryan Ryoung Han Kim^1 
1imec (Belgium)

Overcoming pattern collapse in metal oxide resists using a new rinse technology for EUV lithography
Elke Caron¹, Seungjoo Baek¹, Wesley Zanders¹, Satoshi Shindo², Masahiko Harumoto², Seonggil Heo³, Jelle Vandereyken^3
1SCREEN SPE Germany GmbH (Belgium), ²SCREEN Semiconductor Solutions Co., Ltd. (Japan), ³imec (Belgium)

Nano-TSV to BPR connection optimization
Assawer Soussou¹, Michele Stucchi², Anne Jourdain^2 
1Lam Research Corp. (France), ²imec (Belgium)

Reactions at play in the EUV exposure of a model PFAS-free chemically amplified resist
Chien-Hsun Yu¹, Pol Van Dorpe^1,2, Fabian Holzmeier¹, Danilo De Simone¹, Robert S. Jordan³, James M. Blackwell^3 
1imec (Belgium), ²KU Leuven (Belgium), ³Intel Corp. (United States)

Progress of PFAS-free materials and resist for ArF immersion photolithography
Yuzuru Kaneko¹, Takashi Masubuchi¹, Keito Hagiwara¹, Junya Kanda¹, Haowei Feng¹, Yuki Honda¹, Shoto Suzuki¹, Yuji Hagiwara¹, Diziana Vangoidsenhoven², Andrea Mingardi², Danilo De Simone^2
1Central Glass Co., Ltd. (Japan), ²imec (Belgium)

Towards EUV-based processing of 2D semiconductors for advanced logic applications (Invited Paper)
Reynolds Dziobek-Garrett¹, Vina Faramarzi², Pawan Kumar³, Pierre Morin³, Etienne de Poortere⁴, Mark van de Kerkhof², Jorik van de Groep⁵, Roland Bliem^1
1Advanced Research Ctr. for Nanolithography (Netherlands), ²ASML Netherlands B.V. (Netherlands), ³imec (Belgium), ⁴ASML Technology Development Ctr. (Belgium), ⁵Univ. of Amsterdam (Netherlands)

Dry etch patterning, sustainability, performance: How can they all fit together?
Konstantina Filippidou^1
1imec (Belgium)

Focus sensitivity of CD extreme values demonstrated on a 40 nm pitch DRAM hexagonal contact hole use case printed with 0.33 NA EUV lithography
Andreas Frommhold¹, Bram Slachter², Jeremy Chen², Gijsbert Rispens^2 
1imec (Belgium), ²ASML Netherlands B.V. (Netherlands)

Transient assisted processing (TAP): A novel plasma approach for precise, sustainable, and scalable patterning
Atefeh Fathzadeh^1,2, Philippe Bézard¹, Stefan De Gendt^1,2
1imec (Belgium), ²KU Leuven (Belgium)

Random 2D metal single patterning capability using 0.55NA EUV lithography
Nicolas Besset¹, Dongbo Xu¹, Sophie Rissberger², Fergo Treska³, Renyang Meng³, Vicky Philipsen³, Werner Gillijns³, Shibing Wang^2
1Siemens EDA (Belgium), ²Siemens EDA (United States), ³imec (Belgium)

Cu pad metrology using four-directional BSE signal of SEM for hybrid bonding applications
Hiroaki Kasai¹, Nobuyuki Mise¹, Maki Tanaka¹, Mayuka Osaki², Soon Aik Chew³,Stefaan Van Huylenbroeck³ , Janusz Bogdanowicz³, Alain Moussa³, Anne-Laure Charley³, Gian Lorusso³, Yogmin Cho^3
1Hitachi High-Tech Corp. (Japan), ²Hitachi, Ltd. (Japan), ³imec (Belgium)

Transforming EUV patterned P34nm circular CH structures into oval CHs through directional etch (Invited Paper) 
Howon Jung¹, Hyungju Ryu¹, Sangho Yun¹, Woojin Jung¹, Young-Seog Kang¹, Rajendra Kumar Saroj², Sara Paolillo², Victor Blanco^2
1SAMSUNG Electronics Co., Ltd. (Korea, Republic of), ²imec (Belgium)

Optimization of pitch walking for Ti-based spacer integration in semi-damascene double patterning at MP18
Vincent Renaud¹, Miguel De Abreu Neto², Sungdae Woo³, Gilles Delie¹, Debanjan Jana⁴, David De Roest⁴, Hyungjoo Shin³, Andrey Sokolov³, Daniele Piumi⁴, Laurent Souriau¹, Chen Wu¹, Seongho Park^1
1imec (Belgium), ²ASM Japan K.K. (Japan), ³ASM Korea Ltd. (Korea, Republic of), ⁴ASM Belgium N.V. (Belgium)

Point-of-use UPE membrane filter optimization for EUV chemically amplified photoresist
Alexander Holmann¹, Tetsu Kohyama², Nadia Vandenbroeck¹, Shreya Basak¹, Philippe Foubert^1
1Entegris, Inc. (United States), ²Nihon Entegris G.K. (Japan), ¹imec (Belgium)

Enabling metrology and inspection for CFET structures using hybrid qualification approaches
Hong-Cheon Yang¹, Min-Soo Kim¹, Cassie Sheng¹, Janusz Bogdanowicz¹, Mahmudul Hasan¹, Balakumar Baskaran¹, Jeonghyeon Kim¹, Stephanie Melhem¹, Christophe Beral¹, Anne-Laure Charley¹, Andrea Mingardi^1
1imec (Belgium)

Curvilinear data formats and the impact on mask-to-wafer fidelity
Yi-Pei Tsai¹, Kenichi Miyaguchi¹, Xuelong Shi¹, Soobin Hwang¹, Yasser Sherazi¹, Ryan Ryoung Han Kim¹, Yoshinori Kojima², Kenichi Yasui², Shingo Mori², Makoto Kaneko², Hikari Ogawa^2
1imec (Belgium), ²NuFlare Technology, Inc. (Japan)

Stochastic defectivity on via layer in 0.55 NA EUVL
John Biafore¹, Mircea Dusa², ,Danilo De Simone² , Mark D. Smith¹, Anatoly Burov¹, Pradeep Vukkadala^1
1KLA Corp. (United States), ²imec (Belgium)

Enabling 0.55NA EUV logic patterning with 3-D engineered dry resist films
Shruti Jambaldinni¹, Zhengtao Chen¹, Shubhankar Das², Nizan Kenane³, Ali Haider⁴, Victor Blanco², Boris Volosskiy³, Anuja De Silva⁴, Rich Wise^3
1Lam Research Belgium BV (Belgium), ²imec (Belgium), ³Lam Research Corp. (United States), ⁴Lam Research Belgium BV (Belgium)

Line wiggling in EUV patterning from p96 to p28: A challenge for advanced technological nodes?
Roberto Fallica^1
1imec (Belgium)

Towards 10nm DRAM with the single exposure patterning: Optimization of the processes in 0.55NA EUV lithography
Van Tuong Pham¹, Victor Blanco Carballo¹, Jeonghoon Lee¹, Werner Gillijns¹, Annaelle Demaude¹, WonChan Lee¹, Yannick Feurprier², Kathleen Nafus², Omachi Koki³, Nobuyuki Fukui³, Nayoung Bae⁴, Jan Doise⁵, Peter De Schepper⁵, Mahtab Sangghaleh¹, Pieter Vanelderen¹, ,Sandip Halder¹ , Kurt Ronse¹, Philippe Leray^1 
1imec (Belgium), ²Tokyo Electron Europe Ltd. (Belgium), ³Tokyo Electron Miyagi Ltd. (Japan), ⁴TEL Technology Ctr., America, LLC (United States), ⁵Inpria Corp. (Belgium)

Local CD uniformity improvements for random logic via thorough dry etch process optimizations
Stefan Decoster¹, Bhavishya Chowrira Poovanna¹, Victor Blanco¹, Yusuke Wako², Marc Demand^2 
1imec (Belgium), ²Tokyo Electron Europe Ltd. (Belgium)

Directed self-assembly for advanced nodes: Material and etch innovations for P30CH and P24LS (Invited Paper)
Rémi Vallat¹, Lander Verstraete¹, Minseong Jeong², Laurent Souriau¹, Hyo Seon Suh^1 
1imec (Belgium), ²Seoul National Univ. of Science and Technology (Korea, Republic of)

Printing verification of the improved performance of low-n mask with Sub-Resolution Grating (SRG) in High-NA EUVL
Inhwan Lee^1,2, Joern-Holger Franke¹, Vicky Philipsen¹, Guillaume Libeert¹, Nick Pellens¹, Kurt Ronse¹, Stefan De Gendt^1,2, Eric Hendrickx¹, Geert Mannaert¹, Vincent Truffert^1
1imec (Belgium), ²KU Leuven (Belgium)

Dry etch patterning properties of organic underlayer used on EUV metal oxide resist platform
Viktor Kampitakis¹, Achintya Kundu¹, Mihir Gupta¹, Rémi Vallat¹, Laurent Souriau¹, Hyo Seon Suh¹, David De Roest², Kishan Patel², Alina Talmantaite², Bruno Galizia^2
1imec (Belgium), ²ASM Belgium N.V. (Belgium)

Optimizing lithography conditions in low-NA EUV SADP towards 14nm metal pitch patterning
Gianluca Martini¹, Stefan Decoster¹, Yannick Hermans¹, Nikil Paithankar², Luca Barbisan², Andrea Mingardi¹, Chen Wu¹, Seongho Park¹, Sandip Halder^1
1imec (Belgium), ²KLA Italy Srl (Italy)

Printing 28nm pitch hexagonal contact arrays with metal oxide resist and high-NA EUV lithography: Process challenges and solutions
Presenter/Author
Dieter J. M. Van Den Heuvel¹, Sara Paolillo¹, Christophe Beral¹, Philippe Foubert¹, Xiang Liu², Kathleen Nafus³, Yannick Feurprier^2
1imec (Belgium), ²Tokyo Electron Ltd. (Japan), ³Tokyo Electron Europe Ltd. (Japan)

Random logic via patterning: materials-process-imaging co-optimization for dose reduction, DoF and defect mitigation
Bhavishya Chowrira Poovanna^1
1imec (Belgium)

High-NA: Enabling single exposure for metal logic designs
Shubhankar Das¹, Victor Blanco¹, Syamashree Roy¹, Arup Saha², Joern-Holger Franke¹, Mahmudul Hasan¹, Mahtab Sangghaleh¹, Viktor Kampitakis¹, Jeroen Van De Kerkhove¹, Etienne de de Poortere³, Martin O'Toole³, Pieter Vanelderen¹, Geert Vandenberghe¹, Kurt Ronse¹, Sandip Halder¹, Philippe Leray^1
1imec (Belgium), ²ASML (United States), ³ASML Leuven (Belgium)

High-NA EUV patterning of logic feature 20-24 nm: An e-beam defectivity analysis
Mahmudul Hasan¹, Ganesha Durbha², Victor Blanco¹, Syamashree Roy¹, Joern-Holger Franke¹, Christophe Beral¹, Sandip Halder¹, Philippe Leray^1
1imec (Belgium), ²KLA Corp. (Belgium)

AI-enabled cross-domain image analysis for high-NA via defect quantification in random logic via arrays
Dorin Cerbu¹, Victor M. Blanco Carballo¹, Bhavishya Chowrira Poovanna¹, Safae Ben Ayad El Amri¹, Jeff Hsia², Etienne de Poortere^2
1imec (Belgium), ²ASML Netherlands B.V. (Netherlands)

Monotonic machine learning (MML) for curvilinear OPC retargeting in NA0.33 EUV single-patterning 28nm metal pitch logic technology
Hongming Zhang¹, Renyang Meng², Yuansheng Ma¹, Haizhou Yin¹, Jeongmi Lee¹, Daekyung Yoo³, Keetae Kim³, Hawren Fang¹, Xiaoyuan Qi¹, Sagar Saxena¹, Xima Zhang¹, Werner Gillijns², Le Hong^1
1Siemens EDA (United States), ²imec (Belgium), ³Siemens EDA (Korea, Republic of)

Design for Manufacturability Analysis in Dual Damascene 28nm-Pitch Single Exposure EUV Metal Logic Designs Using Voltage Contrast
Victor M. Blanco Carballo¹, Dorin Cerbu¹, Vincent Renaud¹, Jeroen van de Kerkhove¹, Cyrus Tabery², Etienne P. de Poortere^3 
1imec (Belgium), ²ASML (United States), ³ASML Technology Development Ctr. (Belgium)

Metrology technique for gate stack leakage evaluation using SEMs
Yasuhiro Shirasaki¹, Yajian Hu¹, Kazufumi Yachi¹, Minami Shoji², Hiroaki Arimura³, Jerome Mitard³, Gian Lorusso³, Naoto Horiguchi^3 
1Hitachi High-Tech Corp. (Japan), ²Hitachi, Ltd. (Japan), ³imec (Belgium)

Effect of thickness on the optical constants determination of TiN thin films in the EUV/VUV range
Najmeh Abbasirad¹, Jit Dutta², Nathan Jarnagin³, Udo Kroth¹, Hans Kirschner¹, Vicky Philipsen⁴, Alexander Gottwald¹, Frank Scholze¹, Andrew Kummel², Larissa Juschkin³, Victor Soltwisch^1 
1Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (Germany), ²Univ. of California, San Diego (United States), ³KLA Corp. (United States), ⁴imec (Belgium)

Experimental imaging comparison at 0.55 NA of a low-reflectivity low-n mask to a standard Ta-Based EUV mask
Lieve Van Look¹, Guillaume Libeert¹, Nick Pellens¹, Vicky Philipsen¹, Hiroshi Hanekawa², Taiga Fudetani², Itaru Yoshida³, Ryo Koyano³, Kenjiro Ichikawa³, Hitoki Tanaka³, Kensuke Hayashi^3
1imec (Belgium), ²AGC Inc. (Japan), ³Tekscend Photomask Corp. (Japan)

Co-optimized double exposure stitching with ILT to maximize high-NA EUV process window
Benjamin Painter¹, Ankur Taneja¹, Hesham Abdelghany¹, Xiangyu Zhou¹, Thuc Dam¹, Amyn Poonawala¹, Zachary Levinson¹, Sukho Lee², Werner Gillijns², Petrisor Panaite¹, Kevin Lucas^1
1Synopsys, Inc. (United States), ²imec (Belgium)

P20 HNA enablement via pattern shaping technology: T2T engineering, roughness and defectivity improvement (Invited Paper)
Annaelle Demaude¹, Alejandro Berdonces Layunta¹, Viktor Kampitakis¹, Sara Paolillo¹, Matteo Beggiato¹, Gian Lorusso¹, Blessing Adewumi², Chihan Hsu², Kevin Anglin², Siva Kanakasabapathy²,Steven Sherman² , Andrew Cockburn², Gaetano Santoro², Pieter Vanelderen¹, Laurent Souriau¹, Fred Lazzarino¹, Victor Blanco¹, Geert Vandenberghe¹, Kurt Ronse¹, Philippe Leray^1
1imec (Belgium), ²Applied Materials, Inc. (United States)

Topology-controlled TiN-based spacer engineering via plasma ALD for pitch-walking suppression in EUV SADP-based MP18 integration
Sungdae Woo¹, Hyungjoo Shin¹, Miguel De Abreu Neto², Vincent Renaud³, Hyunchul Kim⁴, Andrey Sokolov⁴, Debanjan Jana⁵, David De Roest⁵, Daniele Piumi⁵, Gilles Delie³, Laurent Souriau³, Chen Wu³, Seongho Park^3
1ASM Korea Ltd. (Korea, Republic of), ²ASM Japan K.K. (Japan), ³imec (Belgium), ⁴ASM Korea Ltd. (Korea, Republic of), ⁵ASM Belgium N.V. (Belgium)

Advances in metastable atom lithography (Invited Paper)
Bodil Holst¹, Adrià Salvador Palau², Daniel Fojo Álvarez², Francesco Andreoli², Eduard Bartrons², Toby Bird¹, Giorgio Calandra¹, Simon Coop¹, Antoni Fierro Gonzales², Borja Gorriz², Daniel J. Hall², Owen Thomas Huisman¹, William Huntington², Teresa Karanikolaou², Meghanad Kayanattil¹, Julien Lecoffre¹, Marc López Vilamajó¹, Juan Jose J. Nieto², Andrew Pratt¹, Pietro Rancati², Bappaditya Sankari¹, Espen Werdal Selfors¹,Adrian Parveet James Sidhu² , Lorentz Tvedt Syslak¹, Philip Wulfsberg¹, Danilo De Simone³, Gian Lorusso³, John Petersen^3
1Lace Lithography (Norway), ²Lace Lithography (Spain), ³imec (Belgium)

multicolor lithography in thin films (Invited Paper)
Nicholas Fisher¹, Shuhei A. Yamaguchi², Jeffrey K. Taylor¹, Anders Dollard¹, Nicholas Simms¹, Docia Atanda¹, Emma Talbott¹, Logan Kallini¹, Sandra Gutierrez Razo¹, Mona Abostate¹, Donald Hong¹, Pierce E. van Mulbregt¹, Amy S. Mullin¹, Daniel J. Falvey¹, John S. Petersen^1,3, John T. Fourkas^1 
1Univ. of Maryland, College Park (United States), ²Sony Corp. (Japan), ³imec (Belgium)

Wafer topography effects on CD, LER, and FFL in high-NA EUV lithography
Robert Seidel¹, Gurpreet Singh¹, Florian Gstrein¹, Marta Anguera¹, Kshitij Sharma¹, Nicole Guzman¹, Mircea Dusa², Bojja Aditya Reddy², Wim Bouman^3
1Intel Corp. (United States), ²imec (Belgium), ³ASML Netherlands B.V. (Netherlands)

Event details

Each year this important community comes together to share and discuss current research, hear the latest breakthroughs, and connect with colleagues. Be sure to browse the six conferences to see which topics will be addressed and highlighted.

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• Plenary events: World-class speakers share insights on the latest challenges and opportunities from industry and academia.

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