Navolak-diazonaphthoquinone resists: The central role of phenolic strings

Novolak-diazonaphthoquinone resists are the principal pattern transfer mate rials of the semiconductor industry, essential tools in building the device s that are making computers possible. In spite of this, there was never a c lear understanding of the way Novolak-diazoquinone resists work. In an earl ier review [A. Reiser ct al., Angew Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 35, 2428 (1996)] w e had presented experiments and ideas that went a long way toward an interp retation of their functional mechanism, yet we had failed in one important respect: we had not recognized the pivotal role of phenolic strings ill the se systems. Since then we have gained a better understanding of the dissolu tion process;, and the new insights have illuminated and connected seemingl y distant phenomena. A coherent and self-consistent picture of dissolution inhibition has emerged. We would like to present it in this article. (C) 20 00 American Vacuum Society. [S0734-211X(00)06303-4].