Development of materials and processes for double patterning toward 32- nm node 193- nm immersion lithography process

A new negative tone imaging with application of new developer to conventional ArF immersion resist materials is proposed for narrow trench pattern formation, which is effective to the double trench process that is one of the candidates of double patterning process for 32 nm node semiconductor devices. No swelling property was realized in the developing step, in which the dissolution mechanism was discussed. Significantly better LWR and resolution on narrow trench pattern were observed with this negative tone development compared to positive tone development. These results suggest that this negative tone development process is one of the promising candidates for double trench process. Feasibility of double development with negative and positive development process was evaluated as a candidate for pitch frequency doubling process, and quite low k1 number of 0.23 was obtained.