Inverse tone direct print EUV lithography enabled by selective material deposition

1. A method for fabricating a pattern of vertical fins in a semiconductor structure, the method comprising:

providing a semiconductor material stack including:

a semiconductor substrate layer;

a fin hard mask stack, including one or more layers, disposed on the semiconductor substrate layer;

a first material layer, consisting of a first material, disposed on the fin hard mask stack; and

a photolithography stack, including one or more layers, disposed on the first material layer;

forming an inverse tone direct print pattern on a top layer of the photolithography stack;

performing first vertical directional etching in the photolithography stack and in the first material layer only where layers are vertically exposed outside of the inverse tone direct print pattern;

removing, after the first vertical directional etching, the photolithography stack to form a mandrel pattern in the first material layer disposed on the fin hard mask stack;

performing selective sidewall spacer deposition on sidewalls of the mandrel pattern in the first material layer, to form trenches between sidewall spacers that were selectively deposited on the sidewalls of the mandrel pattern;

performing selective bottom-up trench fill with a second material to fill only the trenches that were formed between sidewall spacers;

performing etching to remove the mandrel and the sidewall spacers, leaving the second material disposed, in a first pattern following a pattern of the trenches that were formed between sidewall spacers, on the fin hard mask stack;

performing second vertical directional etching in the fin hard mask stack and in the semiconductor substrate layer only where layers are vertically exposed outside of the first pattern of the second material disposed on the fin hard mask stack, to form vertical fins in a vertical fin pattern in the semiconductor substrate layer; and

removing, after the second vertical directional etching, the second material and the fin hard mask stack, exposing the vertical fins in the vertical fin pattern formed in the semiconductor substrate layer.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the inverse tone direct print pattern is formed on the photolithography stack by a direct print lithography process, wherein the direct print lithography process is one of extreme ultra-violet lithography, 193i optical lithography, electron-beam lithography, or nanoimprint lithography.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first material comprises silicon dioxide and the second material comprises silicon nitride.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the sidewall spacers on the sidewalls of the mandrel pattern in the first material layer comprise silicon dioxide.

5. The method of claim 3 , wherein the fin hard mask stack comprises four layers including an amorphous silicon layer disposed directly on a silicon nitride layer, which is disposed directly on a silicon dioxide layer, and which is disposed directly on a silicon nitride layer.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the vertical fins in the vertical fin pattern are separated by wide-open spaces, along a critical dimension, in a low duty cycle of 1:5 or lower.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein adjacent vertical fins in the vertical fin pattern are all separated by respective wide-open spaces, along a critical dimension, in a low duty cycle, and wherein pairs of adjacent vertical fins in the vertical fin pattern, along the critical dimension, are separated by a constant pitch value at near zero tolerance.

8. A method for fabricating a pattern of vertical fins in a semiconductor structure, the method comprising:

providing a semiconductor material stack including a plurality of layers; and

creating an inverse tone direct print pattern in the semiconductor material stack, where a critical dimension of the inverse tone direct print pattern is defined by selective sidewall atomic layer deposition to create trenches in at least one layer in the plurality of layers, wherein the semiconductor material stack includes:

a semiconductor substrate layer;

a fin hard mask stack including one or more layers, disposed on the semiconductor substrate layer;

a first material layer, consisting of a first material, disposed on the fin hard mask stack; and

a photolithography stack including one or more layers, disposed on the first material layer;

forming an inverse tone direct print pattern on a top layer of the photolithography stack using direct print lithography;

performing a first vertical directional etching in the photolithography stack and in the first material layer to form a mandrel pattern in the first material layer; and

performing selective sidewall atomic layer deposition to create sidewall spacers on sidewalls of the mandrel pattern disposed on the fin hard mask stack;

performing selective bottom-up trench fill with a second material to fill only trenches that were formed between the sidewall spacers on sidewalls of the mandrel pattern;

performing etching to remove the first material, the mandrel pattern, and the sidewall spacers, leaving the second material disposed, in a first pattern following a pattern of the trenches that were formed between the sidewall spacers, on the fin hard mask stack;

performing second vertical directional etching in the fin hard mask stack and in the semiconductor substrate layer only where layers are vertically exposed outside of the first pattern of the second material disposed on the fin hard mask stack, to form vertical fins in a vertical fin pattern in the semiconductor substrate layer; and

removing, after the second vertical directional etching, the second material and the fin hard mask stack, exposing the vertical fins in the vertical fin pattern formed in the semiconductor substrate layer.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the first material comprises silicon dioxide and the second material comprises transition metal oxides.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the transition metal is one of titanium, tantalum, or tungsten.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the sidewall spacers on the sidewalls of the mandrel pattern in the first material layer comprise silicon dioxide.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the fin hard mask stack comprises three layers including a silicon nitride layer disposed directly on a silicon dioxide layer, and which is disposed directly on a silicon nitride layer.

13. The method of claim 10 , wherein the vertical fins in the vertical fin pattern are separated by wide-open spaces, along a critical dimension, in a low duty cycle of 1:5 or lower.

14. The method of claim 10 , wherein the vertical fins in the vertical fin pattern are separated by wide-open spaces, along a critical dimension, in a low duty cycle, and wherein pairs of adjacent vertical fins in the vertical fin pattern, along the critical dimension, are separated by a constant pitch value at near zero tolerance.