Further Advances in Chemistry and Technology of Acid-Hardened Resists.

This paper describes further developments of Acid Hardened Resist (AHR) systems, with particular focus on the DUV and i-line AHR resist performance.Results regarding the time delay between exposure and post-exposure bake are given for Megaposit®SNRT'248 photoresist over a 23 hour time delay, with no effect observed on the 0.5 µm linewidths.Li thographic performance for the i-line and DUV resists is also presented.Using i-line phase-shift mask technology 0.35 µm lines and spaces are printed with the i-line AHR resist.Finally, results are presented comparing the relative solubility of crosslinked resist films of SNR248 in tetrahydrofuran vs. various normality levels of tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH).These results lead us to the conclusion that phenolic hydroxyl site blocking plays a role in dissolution inhibition in TMAH developers.