United Microelectronics Corp.

Chieh-Ming Wang

I-Hsiung Huang

Anseime Chen

A process for increasing the line width window in a semiconductor process, which is suitable to be used to increase the line width widow at the time of the exposure of an iso-line pattern under 0.13 &mgr;m. This process includes: first forming a positive photoresist layer on the base, then using the first photomask to conduct the first exposure step on the positive photoresist layer. The first photomask is designed to have at least one main line that is opaque. On each of the two sides of the main line, there is a scattering bar. The width of the two scattering bars is greater than &frac13; of the wavelength of the light source that is used, and less than the width of the main line. The second photomask is used to conduct the second exposure step on the positive photoresist layer. The second photomask is designed to have at least two iso-lines that are pervious to light, and each of the two iso-lines is located at one of the two positions corresponding to the two scattering bars of the first photomask design. The width of each iso-line is greater than that of the corresponding scattering bar and the distance from each edge of the iso-line to each edge of the corresponding scattering bar is greater than about 60 nm.

Process for increasing a line width window in a semiconductor process

A method of improving a photoresist profile. After a photoresist layer is developed, a hard bake is performed at a temperature lower than a glass transition temperature of the photoresist layer. The photoresist layer is thus able to reflow, so that the profile can be modified. Or alternatively, the hard bake step can be replace by first performing a hard bake at a temperature higher than the glass transition temperature, followed by performing a flow bake at a temperature lower than the glass transition temperature.

Growing community of inventors

Hsinchu Hsien, Taiwan

Chieh-Ming Wang