A method is described for utilizing NIL materials with switchable mechanical properties. The method comprises applying an imprint mask to a nano-imprint lithography (NIL) material layer. The NIL material layer is comprised of a NIL material with a modulus level below a flexibility threshold. The NIL material layer has an internal property, that when changed, causes a change in the modulus level of the NIL material. The method further comprises detaching the imprinted NIL material layer from the imprint mask, with the low modulus level of the NIL material causing a shape of the imprinted NIL material layer to remain unchanged after detachment. A modulus level of the NIL material is increased by changing an internal property of the NIL material, with the modulus level increased beyond a strength threshold to create a first imprint layer that has a structure that remains unaffected by a subsequent process.

An information processing apparatus includes an acquisition unit configured to acquire information including a processing result of processing a substrate by a substrate processing apparatus configured to perform substrate processing at a first timing, event information about an event having occurred in the substrate processing apparatus at a second timing after the first timing, and a processing result of processing the substrate by the substrate processing apparatus at a third timing after the second timing, and a display control unit configured to perform control so that a display device displays a chronological graph of a processing result including the processing result at the first timing and the processing result at the third timing based on the information acquired by the acquisition unit, wherein the display control unit performs control to display information in a superimposed manner on the graph, the information indicating the second timing.

A method for categorizing a substrate subject to a semiconductor manufacturing process including multiple operations, the method including: obtaining values of functional indicators derived from data generated during one or more of the multiple operations on the substrate, the functional indicators characterizing at least one operation; applying a decision model including one or more threshold values to the values of the functional indicators to obtain one or more categorical indicators; and assigning a category to the substrate based on the one or more categorical indicators.

A system includes a plate configured for mounting of a reflective extreme ultra-violet (EUV) mask thereon and a zone plate configured to divide EUV light into zero-order light and first-order light and to pass the zero-order light and the first-order light to the reflective EUV mask. The system further includes a detector configured to receive EUV light reflected by the EUV mask and including a zero-order light detection region configured to generate a first image signal and a first-order light detection region configured to generate a second image signal, and a calculator configured to generate a compensated third image signal from the first image signal and the second image signal. The third image signal may be used to determine a distance between mask patterns of the EUV mask.

A method of processing a substrate that includes: depositing a photoresist layer over the substrate; performing a cyclic direct-write lithographic process using a direct-write lithography tool, the cyclic direct-write lithographic process including a plurality of cycles, each of the plurality of cycles including: exposing the photoresist layer to a patterned actinic radiation without using a photomask, defining one of a plurality of coupon regions, where the plurality of coupon regions are configured to generate a plurality of test samples on the substrate for evaluating process conditions of a fabrication process; exposing the one of the plurality of coupon regions; and performing the fabrication process on the one of the plurality of coupon regions.

An information processing apparatus includes an acquisition unit configured to acquire information containing first process data indicating a result of a substrate process in a first process condition and second process data indicating a result of a substrate process in a second process condition different from the first process condition, and a display control unit configured to control a display on a display apparatus based on the information acquired by the acquisition unit, wherein the display control unit is configured to display, on the display apparatus, a first screen displaying a first data group in which the first process data is arranged chronologically and a second data group in which the second process data is arranged chronologically, the first screen displaying the first data group in a region and the second data group in another region.

A method is described for creating a modified mask with low surface energies for a nano-imprint lithography (NIL) imprinting process. The method includes applying a master mold to an imprint mask material to create an imprint mask. The method further includes modifying the imprint mask by applying a treatment to the imprint mask to cause a surface energy level of the imprint mask to fall below a sticking threshold. The modified imprint mask is applied to a nano-imprint lithography (NIL) material to create an imprinted NIL material layer. The surface energy level of the imprint mask causes a shape of the imprinted NIL material layer to be remain unchanged when the imprinted NIL material layer is detached from the modified imprint mask.

A method and associated computer program for predicting an electrical characteristic of a substrate subject to a process. The method includes determining a sensitivity of the electrical characteristic to a process characteristic, based on analysis of electrical metrology data including electrical characteristic measurements from previously processed substrates and of process metrology data including measurements of at least one parameter related to the process characteristic measured from the previously processed substrates; obtaining process metrology data related to the substrate describing the at least one parameter; and predicting the electrical characteristic of the substrate based on the sensitivity and the process metrology data.

Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and software managing the deployment of development environments for an organization. In one example, a computing system may identify a request for a development environment. In response to the request, the computing system may select one or more images for the development environment from a plurality of images based on an identifier associated with the request and initiate one or more virtual nodes from the one or more images based on a configuration associated with the identifier.

A method of optimizing an apparatus for multi-stage processing of product units such as wafers, the method includes: receiving object data representing one or more parameters measured across the product units and associated with different stages of processing of the product units; and determining fingerprints of variation of the object data across the product units, the fingerprints being associated with different respective stages of processing of the product units. The fingerprints may be determined by decomposing the object data into components using principal component analysis for each different respective stage; analyzing commonality of the fingerprints through the different stages to produce commonality results; and optimizing an apparatus for processing product units based on the commonality results.