Comparison of fast 3D simulation and actinic inspection for EUV masks with buries defects

Aerial images for isolated defects and the interactions of defects with features are compared between the Actinic Inspection Tool (AIT) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the fast EUV simulation program RADICAL. Comparisons between AIT images from August 2007 and RADICAL simulations are used to extract aberrations. At this time astigmatism was the dominant aberration with a value of 0.55 waves RMS. Significant improvements in the imaging performance of the AIT were made between August 2007 and December 2008. A good match will be shown between the most recent AIT images and RADICAL simulations without aberrations. These comparisons will demonstrate that a large defect, in this case 7nm tall on the surface, is still printable even if it is centered under the absorber line. These comparisons also suggest that the minimum defect size is between 1.5nm and 0.8nm surface height because a 1.5nm defect was printable but a 0.8nm was not. Finally, the image of a buried defect near an absorber line through focus will demonstrate an inversion in the effect of the defect from a protrusion of the dark line into the space to a protrusion of the space into the line

Association of Common Polymorphisms in GLUT9 Gene with Gout but Not with Coronary Artery Disease in a Large Case-Control Study

BACKGROUND: Serum uric acid (UA) levels have recently been shown to be genetically influenced by common polymorphisms in the GLUT9 gene in two genome-wide association analyses of Italian and British populations. Elevated serum UA levels are often found in conjunction with the metabolic syndrome. Hyperuricemia is the major risk factor for gout and has been associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The aim of the present study was to further elucidate the association of polymorphisms in GLUT9 with gout and coronary artery disease (CAD) or myocardial infarction (MI). To test our hypotheses, we performed two large case-control association analyses of individuals from the German MI Family Study. METHODS AND FINDINGS: First, 665 patients with gout and 665 healthy controls, which were carefully matched for age and gender, were genotyped for four single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within or near the GLUT9 gene. All four SNPs demonstrated highly significant association with gout. SNP rs6855911, located within intron 7 of GLUT9, showed the strongest signal with a protective effect of the minor allele with an allelic odds ratio of 0.62 (95% confidence interval 0.52-0.75; p = 3.2*10(-7)). Importantly, this finding was not influenced by adjustment for components of the metabolic syndrome or intake of diuretics. Secondly, 1,473 cases with severe CAD or MI and 1,241 healthy controls were tested for the same four GLUT9 SNPs. The analyses revealed, however, no significant association with CAD or with MI. Additional screening of genome-wide association data sets showed no signal for CAD or MI within the GLUT9 gene region. CONCLUSION: Thus, our results provide compelling evidence that common genetic variations within the GLUT9 gene strongly influence the risk for gout but are unlikely to have a major effect on CAD or MI in a German population

X-ray lithography using wiggler and undulator synchrotron-radiation sources

A systems design approach is used to identify feasible options for wiggler and undulator beam lines for x-ray lithography in the 0.5 to 0.2 ..mu..m linewidth region over 5 cm by 5 cm fields. Typical parameters from the Wiggler and Undulator in the Advanced Light Source designed at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory are used as examples. Moving from the conventional wavelengths of 4 to 9 A to very soft wavelengths around 15 A is shown to be very promising. The mask absorber thickness can be reduced a factor of three so that 0.2 ..mu..m features can be made with a 1:1 mask aspect ratio. The mask heating limited exposure time is also reduced a factor of three to 3 sec/cm/sup 2/. However, extremely thin beam line windows (1/4 mil Be) and mask supports (1 ..mu..m Si) must be used. A wiggler beam line design using a small slit window at a scanning mirror appears feasible. A unconventional, windowless differentially pumped beam line with dual deflecting mirrors could be used with an undulator source

Investigation of buried EUV mask defect printability using actinic inspection and fast simulation

The fast simulator RADICAL and the Actinic Inspection Tool (AIT) are used in advance of availability of high volume manufacturing quality exposure tools, resists, and masks to assess the expected defect printability levels in production conditions. AIT images are analyzed to qualitatively demonstrate general trends in defect printability: defects smaller than 0.5nm tall on the multilayer surface can cause an unacceptable critical dimension (CD) change, CD change increases for taller defects, and defect printability varies asymmetrically through focus. RADICAL is used to derive quantitative limits for defect size and demonstrate the effects of focus and illumination for 22nm and 16nm dense lines. For 22nm dense lines at best focus a 0.8nm tall defect causes a 10% CD change. For 16nm lines a 0.4nm tall defect causes a 10% CD change. The CD is shown to be more sensitive to buried defects out of focus, but less sensitive to defects in focus if annular or dipole illumination is used

Genetic variants within the LPIN1 gene, encoding lipin, are influencing phenotypes of the metabolic syndrome in humans.

Lipin, a novel molecular protein expressed by adipocytes, has marked effects on adipose tissue mass, insulin sensitivity, and glucose homeostasis. Thus, we hypothesized that genetic variants within LPIN1 are associated with traits of the metabolic syndrome. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A total of 15 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) covering the LPIN1 gene region were genotyped in an age- and sex-stratified sample of the general population (Monitoring Trends and Determinants on Cardiovascular Diseases Study Augsburg; DNA and phenotypes of 1,416 Caucasians). Ten SNPs were also genotyped for replication in an independent sample of 1,030 subjects recruited throughout Germany. The metabolic syndrome was defined via the sum of its core components and, additionally, by a factor score derived from factor analysis. Permutation-based methods were used to test the association between genetic LPIN1 variants and metabolic traits for empirical significance. RESULTS: Linkage disequilibrium (LD) analysis revealed three LD blocks encompassing LPIN1. We identified three associated three-marker haplotypes: one common haplotype (26.8% frequency) increases the risk for the metabolic syndrome (odds ratio 1.6 [95% CI 1.2-2.2]), while the other two, being less common (5.7 and 4.0%), are strongly associated with lower blood pressure levels (systolic blood pressure 127 +/- 18 vs. 135 +/- 20 mmHg; P = 0.0001), a lower BMI (24.6 +/- 3.6 vs. 26.9 +/- 4.1 kg/m(2); P = 3.7 x 10(-7)) and waist circumference (82 +/- 12 vs. 90 +/- 12 cm; P = 3.2 x 10(-8)), lower A1C levels (5.1 +/- 0.7 vs. 5.3 +/- 0.9%; P = 0.0002), as well as a lower metabolic syndrome factor score (-0.67 +/- 1.00 vs. 0.04 +/- 1.24; P = 1.4 x 10(-7)). Furthermore, the frequencies of arterial hypertension (23.7 vs. 46.4%; P = 0.00001), obesity (12.9 vs. 30.8%; P = 0.0003), diabetes (2.2 vs. 8.2%; P = 0.041), and the presence of three or more metabolic syndrome components (3.3 vs. 13.7%; P = 0.002) were significantly lower than in subjects not carrying one of these protective haplotypes. Strong associations were also observed in the replication sample using the same haplotypes but with effects in the opposite direction. CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that allelic variants of the LPIN1 gene have significant effects in human metabolic traits and thus implicate lipin in the pathophysiology of the metabolic syndrome

Enabling EUV resist research at the 1x and smaller regime

With the slipping of the insertion node for extreme ultraviolet lithography, demands on resist resolution have increased further stressing sensitivity requirements. A variety of resists, both chemically amplified and not, have been developed meeting resolution needs, but falling short on sensitivity and line-width roughness (LWR). Note that resolution is an absolute mandatory requirement, the true tradeoff that must be considered is between sensitivity and contact hole printing is a crucial application for extreme ultraviolet lithography and is particularly challenged by resist sensitivity due to inherent inefficiencies in darkfield contact printing. Checkerboard strong phase shift masks have the potential to alleviate this problem through a 4× increase in optical efficiency. The feasibility of this method is demonstrated using the SEMATECH-Berkeley Microfield Exposure Tool pseudo phase shift mask configuration and preliminary results are provided on the fabrication of an etched multilayer checkerboard phase shift mask

Enabling EUV resist research at the 1x and smaller regime

With the slipping of the insertion node for extreme ultraviolet lithography, demands on resist resolution have increased further stressing sensitivity requirements. A variety of resists, both chemically amplified and not, have been developed meeting resolution needs, but falling short on sensitivity and line-width roughness (LWR). Note that resolution is an absolute mandatory requirement, the true tradeoff that must be considered is between sensitivity and contact hole printing is a crucial application for extreme ultraviolet lithography and is particularly challenged by resist sensitivity due to inherent inefficiencies in darkfield contact printing. Checkerboard strong phase shift masks have the potential to alleviate this problem through a 4× increase in optical efficiency. The feasibility of this method is demonstrated using the SEMATECH-Berkeley Microfield Exposure Tool pseudo phase shift mask configuration and preliminary results are provided on the fabrication of an etched multilayer checkerboard phase shift mask

Lymphotoxin-alpha and galectin-2 SNPs are not associated with myocardial infarction in two different German populations.

Recent data provided strong evidence for the association of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the lymphotoxin-alpha (LTA) and galectin-2 (LGALS2) genes with myocardial infarction (MI) in a Japanese population. For populations of other genetic background, the relevance of these polymorphisms in the pathogenesis of MI remains controversial. We aimed to define the role of LTA and LGALS2 SNPs in two German MI populations with markedly different ascertainment strategies. Two different MI populations were studied. In the first population, MI patients were ascertained by a strong family history of MI (n=1214). Controls were unrelated disease-free participants of the study (n=1080). The second population included patients suffering from sporadic (nonfamilial) MI from the German KORA register (n=607). The control group consisted of participants of the WHO MONICA survey in Germany (n=1492). TaqMan assays were used to determine the genotypes of 4 SNPs in the LTA genomic region and 1 SNP in the LGALS2 gene. Single SNPs in both genomic regions as well as haplotypes in the LTA genomic region were tested for association in various models of inheritance. No association with MI could be found for any of the examined SNPs in the LTA genomic region and LGALS2 gene, or for haplotypes spanning the LTA genomic region. In two MI populations of European descent with markedly different ascertainment strategies, we were not able to identify a significant association of SNPs in the LTA genomic region or the LGALS2 gene with MI. These variants are unlikely to play a significant role in populations of European origin