Thin resist performance comparison for advanced e-beam reticle fabrication

There seem to be much activities, in the mask-making industry at present, in re-establishing a new proces technique and condition for conventional high-molecular polymer resists such as EBR-9TM series rather than in seeking an alternative. This is because of infeasibility of an alternative such as DNQ-Novolak or chemical amplified resist. And 'thin resist' is a promising option for advanced e-beam reticle fabrication. We had investigated optimum coating thickness as thin resist, baking condition and exposure dose firstly on PBS and ZEP- 7000TM, and reported the results and its efficacy in pattering performance at 16th BACUS annual symposium in '96. This time, we tried to determine the optimum coating conditions for EBR-9, EBR-9 HS31TM and ZEP-810TM, and evaluated patterning performance, by which all major five resists to be covered for a comparison. We examined pre-baking latitude, coating thickness latitude, exposure dose latitude, develop latitude, and pattern linearity and fidelity, under the optimum conditions, in order to see advantages and disadvantages of thin resist coating on each individual resist. This paper describes our investigation results on the optimum condition in coating thickness, pre-baking and exposure dose, as well as comparison results on patterning performance of thin resist coating between major five conventional resists, PBSTM, EBR-9, EBR-9 HS31, ZEP-810 and ZEP-7000, for advanced e-beam reticle fabrication.