High throughput projection UV lithography of high-aspect-ratio thick SU-8 microstructures

This paper presents a method and an ultra-violet (UV) lithography system to fabricate high-aspect-ratio microstructures (HARMS) with good sidewall quality and nice dimension control to meet the requirement for industrial high throughput and high yield production of micro devices. The advantages, equipment, working principle of UV projection scanning exposure, and scanning exposure strategies are introduced first. Following the numerical simulation for the UV projection scanning exposure of thick SU-8 photoresist, experiment results are demonstrated for different exposure strategies. With Continually Changing Focus Projection Scanning (CCFPS), SU-8 microstructures with 860 μm high and 15 μm feature size are demonstrated. For microstructure with 866 μm height, 20 μm width, from the top layer to the bottom layer, the dimension can be controlled in the range of +0.7 to −1.7 μm; also, the vertical sidewall angle can be controlled inside 90 ± 0.16°. It approves that the CCFPS exposure for HARMS can achieve much straighter and more vertical sidewall compared with UV contact print or UV projection exposure with focusing image on the resist surface or an optimized depth.