PAG study of PAG bonded resist for EUV and EB lithography

Abstract

In order to reduce line edge roughness and to increase sensitivity, PAG-bonded chemically amplified resist was developed and was evaluated in extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) and electron beam (EB) lithography. We investigated various kinds of photo acid generators (PAGs) which are on the basis of the sulfonium salts to find the beneficial photo acid generator (PAG) for our designed PAG-bonded resist. It was confirmed that not only the structure of anion of PAG but also the structure of cation of PAG are important to achieve the resist specification. It is confirmed that by a selected PAG system, high E0 sensitivity was achieved under the EUV exposure. In addition, LER of 3.5 nm (3σ) was achieved by an EB writing tool. © 2008 CPST.