Recent advances in the development of chemically amplified resists for applications in electron beam lithography

Abstract

The use of chemically amplified resists in electron beam lithography presents several challenges that are often specific to the ultimate application of this technology. The coupling of electron beams with positive tone chemically amplified resists, whether it be for NGL device manufacturing with a projection system or high-end mask making with a raster-scan tool, has provided an opportunity to probe some of the chemical and physical subtleties that are inherent to these complex systems. The ability to fine-tune a resist system for a particular end use requires a fundamental understanding of the parameters that control aspects of the resist such as sensitivity, deprotection kinetics and process latitude. Over the last few years, these issues have been explored for an IBM-developed, low activation energy resist, KRS-XE. Features of this work are summarized here with particular emphasis on the roles of both the environment in which the resist is exposed and the thickness of the resist film.