Characterization of electrostatic discharge threshold voltage of phase-shift mask reticle

A reticle is a stencil used in lithography process for forming integrated circuit (IC) on silicon substrate. It consists of a thin (100 nm) coating of masking metallic patterned (features) with critical dimension (CD) of nanometers on a thicker quartz substrate. The features can be damaged by electrostatic discharge (ESD) when exposed to the environment electrostatic charge and caused deformed IC and eventually device difunctional. Semiconductor equipment materials industry (SEMI) standard established the allowable electrostatic charge on reticle based on the characterization of ESD threshold voltage on binary reticle. However, there is another type of reticle which is phase-shift mask (PSM), has not been characterized for its ESD threshold voltage. A direct current (DC) voltage is applied directly to the structures with CD of 80 nm, 110 nm, and 160 nm. The surface current is recorded at all levels of stress from 1 to 100 V. The current–voltage (IV) curve and physical inspection results for each cell are then reviewed and classified. The results yielded which no electric field induced migration (EFM) defect and breakdown voltage occurred at any of the structures. The cathode’s metal work function has been identified as the factor that influences the PSM reticle ESD threshold voltage.

The Copenhagen Criteria and the Road to the Balkan Region

The affirmation and consolidation of the European project is based on a common effort to expand the domains and territorial dimension of the European Union. The different enlargement processes have been fulfilling political, economic, and geographical objectives and goals; however, the last few years have been marked by uncertainty regarding the calendar of accession processes for the Balkan States. If for some authors and political actors it is undeniable that the future will lead to an expansion of the European Union to this region, others warn of the ungovernability associated with moving forward without consolidating decision-making processes. This chapter aims to revisit the accession criteria (Copenhagen Criteria) and the current situation of candidate and potential candidate countries in the Balkan region in a critical dimension on the importance of these criteria for European democracy.

True 3D Nanometrology: 3D-Probing with a Cantilever-Based Sensor

State of the art three-dimensional atomic force microscopes (3D-AFM) cannot measure three spatial dimensions separately from each other. A 3D-AFM-head with true 3D-probing capabilities is presented in this paper. It detects the so-called 3D-Nanoprobes CD-tip displacement with a differential interferometer and an optical lever. The 3D-Nanoprobe was specifically developed for tactile 3D-probing and is applied for critical dimension (CD) measurements. A calibrated 3D-Nanoprobe shows a selectivity ratio of 50:1 on average for each of the spatial directions x, y, and z. Typical stiffness values are kx = 1.722 ± 0.083 N/m, ky = 1.511 ± 0.034 N/m, and kz = 1.64 ± 0.16 N/m resulting in a quasi-isotropic ratio of the stiffness of 1.1:0.9:1.0 in x:y:z, respectively. The probing repeatability of the developed true 3D-AFM shows a standard deviation of 0.18 nm, 0.31 nm, and 0.83 nm for x, y, and z, respectively. Two CD-line samples type IVPS100-PTB, which were perpendicularly mounted to each other, were used to test the performance of the developed true 3D-AFM: repeatability, long-term stability, pitch, and line edge roughness and linewidth roughness (LER/LWR), showing promising results.

The Ideal Dimension of Law

The main theme of the article is ideal dimension of law. Author argue for a dual nature thesis – which contends that law necessarily comprises both a real or factual dimension and an ideal or critical dimension – and demonstrates how the ideal dimension (which refers primarily to moral correctness) implies the truth of non-positivism. The key provisions of the conception represented in article are substantiated in a polemic with other well-known representative of non-positivism – John Finnis. Particular attention is paid to determine relation between the real and ideal dimensions of law, which involves answering five questions. First, is there an outermost border of law? Second, is legal argumentation based exclusively on authoritative reasons or does it also include non-authoritative reasons? Third, what is the relation between human rights and legal systems? Forth, is democracy to be understood exclusively as a decision procedure or also as a form of discourse? Fifth, do legal system comprise only rules expressing a real “ought” or also principles expressing an “ideal ought”? These five questions are answered by the following five theses: the first with the Radbruch formula; he second with the special case thesis; the third with the thesis that constitutional rights are to be understood as attempts to positivize human rights; the fourth with the deliberative model of democracy; and the fifth with principles theory. All five theses turn on the same point: the claim to correctness.

Effective action of string theory at order $$\alpha '$$ in the presence of boundary

Recently, using the assumption that the string theory effective action at the critical dimension is background independent, the classical on-shell effective action of the bosonic string theory at order $$\alpha '$$ α ′ in a spacetime manifold without boundary has been reproduced, up to an overall parameter, by imposing the O(1, 1) symmetry when the background has a circle. In the presence of the boundary, we consider a background which has boundary and a circle such that the unit normal vector of the boundary is independent of the circle. Then the O(1, 1) symmetry can fix the bulk action without using the lowest order equation of motion. Moreover, the above constraints and the constraint from the principle of the least action in the presence of boundary can fix the boundary action, up to five boundary parameters. In the least action principle, we assume that not only the values of the massless fields but also the values of their first derivatives are arbitrary on the boundary. We have also observed that the cosmological reduction of the leading order action in the presence of the Hawking–Gibbons boundary term, produces zero cosmological boundary action. Imposing this as another constraint on the boundary couplings at order $$\alpha '$$ α ′ , we find the boundary action up to two parameters. For a specific value for these two parameters, the gravity couplings in the boundary become the Chern–Simons gravity plus another term which has the Laplacian of the extrinsic curvature.

Reduction of EUV resist damage by neutral beam etching

Even though EUV lithography has the advantage of implenting a finer pattern compared to ArF immersion lithography due to the use of 13.5 nm instead of 193 nm as the wavelengh of the light source, due to the low energy of EUV light source, EUV resist has a thinner thickness than conventional ArF resist. EUV resist having such a thin thickness is more vulnerable to radiation damage received during the etching because of its low etch resistance and also tends to have a problem of low etch selectivity. In this study, the radiation damage to EUV resist during etching of hardmask materials such as Si3N4, SiO2, etc. using CF4 gas was compared between neutral beam etching (NBE) and ion beam etching (IBE). When NBE was used, after the etching of 20 nm thick EUV resist, the line edge roughness (LER) increase and the critical dimension (CD) change of EUV resist were reduced by ~ 1/3 and ~ 1/2, respectively, compared to those by IBE. Also, at that EUV etch depth, the RMS(root mean square) surface roughness value of EUV resist etched by NBE was ~2/3 compared to that by IBE on the average. It was also confirmed that the etching selectivity between SiO2, Si3N4, etc. and EUV resist was higher for NBE compared to IBE. The less damage to the EUV resist and the higher etch selectivity of materials such as Si3N4 and SiO2 over EUV resist for NBE compared to IBE are believed to be related to the no potential energy released by the neutralization of the ions during the etching for NBE.

The Impression of Training Entertainment on the Social Expansion of Kindergarten Kids

Undoubtedly the most critical dimension of an individual’s personality in terms of society is the social dimension of personality. Social behaviour forms the basis of every person’s life. Man is a social being and needs to communicate with others. Many humans' significant needs and flourishing of their talents and abilities can only be entirely fined through interpersonal interaction and social communication—the necessity of social life psychological preparation, social skills, self-confidence and power of the social adjustment. Human growth and development in childhood in terms of social development emotional, cognitive and physical development has characteristics that can make the child vulnerable to mental health. Social development is the most critical aspect of every person’s existence. It is assumed that children can’t do without social development and having the necessary skills to perform their duties in social interaction with others. Social growth promotes intellectual growth and other aspects of one’s development. In the process, people learn skills, knowledge and adaptation techniques and the possibility of reciprocal relations in continuous interaction their considers social development in the form of the child’s mutual adaptation to the social environment and about peers and it is a process that enables the child to understand and predict the behaviour of others, to control their behaviour and regulate their social interactions.

Student agency in Non-Traditional Learning Spaces: Life in-between and on the fringes

Non-Traditional Learning Spaces (NTLS) boasting innovative building designs that embody an array of modern technology, visually and functionally sever schooling practices from the factory model, suggesting a reconceptualisation of what it is to ‘do school’ at the level of research and practice. This process of reconceptualisation includes reconceptualised pedagogical practice, and the development by students of spatial competency. In this regard, ‘student agency’ plays a significant role. For some years now, student agency has been prioritised by education policymakers and reformers alike, and it is a concept that has become central to questions relating to teacher practice and student life in NTLS. In this article, agency is construed as a contestable, politically domesticated construct that is reduced to student engagement with prescribed, mainstream and ‘official’ educational processes. We argue, instead, that the notion of student agency be taken beyond this sanitised usage, so that the broader complexity of agentic practices be understood. Understanding student agentic practice in NTLS is a critical dimension of the overall aim of more rigorously theorising spatiality, and in this article, we begin the task of considering how student agentic practices can be included in achieving that aim. Therefore, we discuss and explore the complexities of agentic student behaviour, considering where it is located in the complex relationship between the development of student spatial competence and mere compliance in NTLS.

Critical transition to a non-chaotic regime in isotropic turbulence

We study the properties of homogeneous and isotropic turbulence in higher spatial dimensions through the lens of chaos and predictability using numerical simulations. We employ both direct numerical simulations and numerical calculations of the eddy damped quasi-normal Markovian closure approximation. Our closure results show a remarkable transition to a non-chaotic regime above the critical dimension, $d_c$ , which is found to be approximately 5.88. We relate these results to the properties of the energy cascade as a function of spatial dimension in the context of the idea of a critical dimension for turbulence where Kolmogorov's 1941 theory becomes exact.