Mechanistic understanding of post-etch roughness in 193-nm photoresists

Young C. Bae; George G. Barclay; Patrick J. Bolton; Robert J. Kavanagh; Lujia Bu; Tatum Kobayashi; Tim Adams; Nick Pugliano; James W. Thackeray

doi:10.1117/12.483761

12 June 2003 Mechanistic understanding of post-etch roughness in 193-nm photoresists

Young C. Bae, George G. Barclay, Patrick J. Bolton, Robert J. Kavanagh, Lujia Bu, Tatum Kobayashi, Tim Adams, Nick Pugliano, James W. Thackeray

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 5039, Advances in Resist Technology and Processing XX; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.483761
Event: Microlithography 2003, 2003, Santa Clara, California, United States

Abstract

Surface roughness of 193 nm resists after a dry etch process is one of the critical issues in the implementation of 193 nm lithography to sub- 100 nm technology nodes. Compared to commercial 248 nm resists, 193 nm photoresists exhibit significant roughness especially under the etch conditions for dielectrics, such as silicon dioxide and silicon nitride. While AFM analysis of DUV resists exhibit the mean roughness (R_a) of ~1 nm after blanket oxide etch, R_a’s of 193 nm resists were found to be in the range of 4 to 7 nm depending on the chemical structure of the resist backbone. In an effort to develop 193 nm resists with improved post-etch roughness (PER), we carried out exhaustive screening of the available 193 nm resist platforms using bulk oxide etch followed by AFM analysis of the resist surface. Benchmarking results indicated that cyclic olefin copolymers, prepared by vinyl addition copolymerization of norbornene derivatives, exhibit significantly better PER than (meth)acrylic copolymers, cyclic olefin/maleic anhydride (COMA) copolymers, or COMA/(meth)acrylic copolymers (COMA hybrid). In this paper, are addressed various factors that influence PER of 193 nm resists and presented solutions to overcome etch inferiority with 193 nm resists for the real device fabrication.

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Young C. Bae, George G. Barclay, Patrick J. Bolton, Robert J. Kavanagh, Lujia Bu, Tatum Kobayashi, Tim Adams, Nick Pugliano, and James W. Thackeray "Mechanistic understanding of post-etch roughness in 193-nm photoresists", Proc. SPIE 5039, Advances in Resist Technology and Processing XX, (12 June 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.483761

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