The main challenge in developing a suitable EUV photoresist, particularly for high Numerical Aperture (NA) EUV lithography anticipated for late 2024, lies in the Resolution, Line Width Roughness, and Sensitivity (RLS) trade-off. PiBond has been actively addressing this challenge by developing silicon photoresist (SiPR) based on chemically modified HSQ siloxane chemistry, consisting of a single polymer component. This resist, a non-metal negative tone, high Si-containing, employs the industry-standard TMAH developer. Previously, we achieved a resolution of 32nm pitch with a dose of 170mJ/cm2 and a Line Width Roughness (LWR) of 5.3nm. In this study, we synthesized a novel chemically modified HSQ-type siloxane resist to enhance RLS characteristics, assessing its performance using both Electron Beam Lithography (EBL) and EUVL. Utilizing the EUV Interference Lithography tool at PSI, we obtained a 28nm pitch resolution with an improved LWR of approximately 3.2nm, while controlling the dose-to-size to about 120mJ/cm2. Furthermore, by employing a suitable silicon hard mask underlayer developed in-house, we further enhanced sensitivity by 24% at 28nm pitch and 38% at 30nm pitch resolution. Crucially, we established correlations between EBL and EUV for our SiPR, leveraging the accessibility of EBL compared to EUV tools. Leveraging these correlations, we effectively utilized EBL to investigate the newly synthesized resist and optimize processing conditions. Our findings demonstrate the significant impact of both resist functionalization and processing conditions on the final lithography performance.
The RLS trade-off of EUV resists has been a major technical issue for high-volume manufacturing using EUVL. Significant attempts to develop of chemically-amplified resists, metal-containing resists, and a variety of other material classes have been made to obtain low LER at high resolution (R) and at a reasonable sensitivity (S). Previously, we have developed and reported work on silanol-containing polyhydrogensilsesquioxane resins and their use as negative tone resists. The developed silanol-containing polymer resists have demonstrated enhanced EUV sensitivity compared to traditional hydrogen silsesquioxane resins, and at the same time maintaining excellent etch properties. The resist may enable a bilayer stack technology in EUVL. Herein we report novel functionalized polyhydrogensilsesquioxane polymers and their use as negative tone resists. These materials exhibit improved LER/LWR and reasonably good EUV sensitivity. In best cases, data suggests no residues or bridging in the non-exposed areas. The optimized resist exhibits sub-20nm halfpitch resolution, low LER (2-3nm), and reasonable sensitivity (82.5 mJ/cm2). In addition, we also investigated the effect of three organic underlayers for EUV patterning and compared with the silicon substrate.
KEYWORDS: Extreme ultraviolet lithography, Etching, Extreme ultraviolet, Electron beam lithography, System on a chip, Coating, Silicon, Line edge roughness, Metals, Line width roughness
Extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL, λ = 13.5 nm) is the most promising candidate to pattern the finest features in the next-generation integrated circuit manufacturing. Chemically-amplified resists (CARs) have long been used as state-of-the art photoresists and have been considered as EUV resist. Recently, inorganic and metal-containing resist materials have received significant attention in both academia and industry areas, with the aim to improve the resist performance in terms of resist resolution (R), line-edge roughness (LER), and sensitivity (S) to solve the well-known RLS trade-off. However, the resists reported to date usually have either problem in terms of RLS trade-off or pose metal contamination, which is a serious issue in expensive EUV equipment. Differently, in this report, we demonstrate our recent success in the development of the photochemistry of silicon compounds and resist formulations to obtain novel EUV negative tone resists with high resolution (up to 22nm pitch line/space patterns), low line-edge roughness (1-3nm) with reasonable EUV sensitivity. We also discuss their high etch selectivity to a PiBond’s SOC organic underlayer, which enable a bilayer lithography stack for EUVL patterning. Their excellent etch performances by RIE plasma is also reported.
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