IBM-JSR 193nm negative tone resist: Polymer design, material properties, and lithographic performance

Abstract

It has been previously proposed that negative-tone resist process would have an intrinsic advantage for printing narrow trench geometry. To demonstrate this for 193nm lithography, a negative resist with performance comparable to a leading positive resist is required. In this paper we report the joint development of a hexafluoroalcohol containing, 193nm, negative-tone, chemically amplified resist based on the crosslinking approach. Lithographic performance is presented which includes the ability of the negative-tone resist to print 90nm line/space and isolated trenches with standard resist processing. The impact of the fluorinated polymer on etch performance is also quantified. Finally, key resist characteristics and their influence on performance and limiting factors such as microbridging are discussed.