G. Arthur et al., EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE-VARIATIONS IN THE POSTEXPOSURE PROCESSES OF OPTICAL LITHOGRAPHY, Microelectronic engineering, 35(1-4), 1997, pp. 137-140
The effects of developer temperature and post-exposure bake (PEB) in p
hotoresist processing are investigated. Results are presented in terms
of their computer simulation parameters using the Mack development mo
del and show that, for the resist/developer system used, the values of
R(max) and n increase with developer temperature, whilst m(th) change
s only when the PEB step is varied. Increasing the PEB temperature red
uces all 3 parameters. Practically, these results bring about an impro
vement in resolution with increasing developer temperature but a degra
dation as PEB temperature increases. The optical proximity effect know
n as dense/isolated offset can be eliminated by careful selection of a
n intermediate development temperature. These results reported improve
the correlation between practical and simulated results and may sugge
st process changes which may enhance performance in production conditi
ons.