Hideaki Kuwano

Newly developed acrylic copolymers for ArF photoresist

We have developed novel acrylic copolymers for ArF photoresist which have more etching durability than usual. The excellent one of those copolymers in handling contains 8- or 9- methacryloyloxy-4-oxatricyclo[5.2.1.02,6]decan-3-one (OTDMA) and (gamma) ,(gamma) -dimethyl-(alpha) -methylene-(gamma) -butyrolac tone (DMMB). OTDMA is a new methacrylic ester monomer having a lactone unit with bridged structure. DMMB introduces a lactone structure to the main chain of acrylic copolymers. It was suggested that the solubility of monomers depends on the hindrance of their polar group, and the role of the hydrophilic monomers has been discussed from the standpoint of the position of their hydrophilic parts.

Development of advanced ArF resist using alicyclic methacrylate copolymer: the optimum quenchers for this copolymer

We have investigated alicyclic methacrylate copolymers for positive ArF resist. The resist utilizing developed copolymer had so high sensitivity and so high resolution that we could believe its potentiality to be high. When any quenchers were not added, the limited resolution of the developed resist was by 0.14 micrometer L/S. Therefore we carried out the investigation of quencher in order to improve the resolution of the resist. As a result, it found out that amide compounds were effective as a quencher for this system, and a certain kind of an amide compound made the resist profiles good. Then we studied the relationship between the resist performance and the basicity or the polarity of the basic organic compounds used as quencher.