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Peter Cirigliano, Reza Sadjadi, & Amulya Athayde, Lam Research Corp., Fremont, CA, USA, George Barclay, Jerome Wandell, & Frank Fischer, Shipley Company, LLC, Marlborough, MA, USA

ABSTRACT

At the 90-nm technology node and beyond, new photoresists are being introduced that require more sophisticated, expensive steppers. Extending current lithography and etch equipment and processes can provide a significant financial benefit to IC manufacturers. One approach is the use of bilayer photoresists to ease the requirements of etching thinner resist films. Though 248-nm bilayer resists have been available for several years, 193-nm materials are just now maturing. Developing these new 193-nm bilayer resist materials will be important in enabling lithography technology to meet requirements for the 65-nm node. This article discusses a new 193-nm bilayer material, which extends current bilayer applications as well as 248-nm and 193-nm single-layer resists. Early-stage joint development can reduce maturation cycles for delivering enabling solutions as demonstrated in the work presented in this paper.