A flawless reticle or photomask is crucial to achieving high yield in photolithography applications. Defects and contaminations cause pattern placement errors that are replicated repeatedly on production substrates. Reticle inspection systems help mask shops to qualify their photomasks and fabs to protect their yield by mitigating the risk of printing defective wafers and other substrates. Chipmakers, flat panel display (FPD), and PCB manufacturers rely on these system to assess incoming reticle quality and re-qualify reticles periodically during production.
Photolithography serves such a wide range of purposes that reticles come in too many varieties to count. Primelite focuses on inspection tools that identify defects and contaminations on large photomasks using near ultraviolet (NUV), visible (VIS), and near infrared (NIR) light. Powerful and flexible, our LED solutions replace conventional mercury and xenon discharge lamps in these systems.
While other LED exposure solutions provide narrowband inspection light – for example, at around 385±15 nm – our advanced LED systems give you a broadband output spectrum that you can customize as you see fit. To complement the central wavelengths matching the i-, h-, and g-line (365 / 405 / 436 nm) of conventional discharge lamps, can add VIS components such as blue and green to the spectral range.
Our Advanced Light Engine ONE lets you combine up to five high-power, individually feedback-controlled LEDs into a single optical path. Cost-effective single- and dual-wavelength exposure setups are available based on our fiber-coupled UV-LED light source ALE/3.
Output power [mW]1 | Broadband (350 - 450 nm) | i-line (355 - 385 nm) |
---|---|---|
ALE/1.3 (CWL 365 / 405 / 436 nm)2 | 30,000 | 10,000 |
ALE/3.2 (CWL 365 / 405 nm)2 | 13,000 | 6,500 |
200 W Mercury discharge lamp (typical values) | 7,500 | 3,000 |
1Power output measured at end of light guide (active core dia. 6.5 mm, length 1.5 m); deviation of ±10% possible
2CWL of emitters: 367.5±2.5 nm, 402.5±2.5 nm, and 435.0±2.5 nm
ALE/1 UV-LED spot light sources raise the industry’s bar for tailored broadband exposure spectra and superb stability.
Need an affordable, small-footprint replacement for reticle inspection tools’ mercury discharge lamps? Here it is.
Learn more about how our high-transmission LED Light Guides can improve your photomask inspection setup.