HIGH-PERFORMANCE POSITIVE DUV PHOTORESISTS AZ(R) DX 1100P, AZ(R) DX 1200P, AZ(R) DX 1300P, AZ(R) DX 2034P, AZ(R) DX 2058P FOR ADVANCED LITHOGRAPHIC APPLICATIONS

An increasing number of DUV resists, which have taken consider able st eps on the maturity curve, is available on the market these days. It b ecomes obvious that - similar to i-line application there is not the u niversal resist giving the best fit for every aspect of DUV handling. Meanwhile this seems to find wide acceptance by the majority of the us er community. Classifying major commercial PHS based resists according the protective group: acetal, t-BOC and acrylate type with the chemis try concept of low, medium and high activation energy may be distingui shed, in order to satisfy specific customer needs Clariant have a comm ercially available family of AZ(R) DUV products. These recently develo ped products include on the positive resist side AZ(R) DX 1100P, AZ(R) DX 1200P. AZ(R) DX 1300P, AZ(R) DX 2034P and AZ(R) DX 2058P, all two component acetal-based systems. The details of this resist chemistry a re described elsewhere(1). Dose-to-print versus dose-to-clear ratio is about 2.4 indicating high contrast. Process parameters, as well as se lected characteristics and performance items are highlighted in this c ontribution. AZ(R) DX 1100P is intended for use on weakly reflective s ubstrates, such as bottom antireflective coatings (BARCs) of organic o l inorganic nature. On AZ(R) BARLi, a BARC originally developed for i- line application, AZ(R) DX 1100P shows a lines and spaces resolution w ell bellow 0.2 mu m. Depth of focus (DOF) amounts to 1.05 mu m for 0.2 5 mu m critical dimension (CD). Excellent post exposure bake (PF) lati tudes are found where CD change is below 1 nm/degrees C. Post exposure delay stability for CD 0.2 um ii; better than 12 hours for amine conc entrations at around 5 ppb. Good substrate compatibility is also found on TiN and Tungsten (W). AZ(R) DX 1200P is targeted for contact hole (C/H) printing. Besides an excellent sensitivity with the C/H dose to print at around 10 mJ/cm(2) for 0.96 um resist thickness, C/H ultimate resolution goes down to < 0.2 mu m. For CD O.25 mu m the DOF is deter mined to be greater than 1.2 mu m. As far as the baking parameters are concerned, there is full processing compatibility with conventional d iazonaphtoquinone/novolak based resists. This is also valid for AZ(R) DX 1300P, an allround resist, aimed for a wide range of applications o n standard and highly reflective substrates. Evaluation highlights of AZ(R) DX 1300P include high sensitivity of around 20 mJ/cm(2), excelle nt resolution down to 0.2 mu m and a large DOF of 1.2 mu m for 0.25 mu m l/s. To respond to most advanced sub 0.2 mu m CD needs AZ(R) DX 203 4P comparable to AZ(R) DX 1100P addresses BARC and AZ(R) DX 2058P anal ogous to AZ(R) DX 1300P covers the remaining more general areas of use .