Lam Research Corporation

Timothy William Weidman

Richard Alan Gottscho

Yang Pan

Jengyi Yu

Boris Volosskiy

Chenghao Wu

Sivananda K Kanakasabapathy

Adrien Lavoie

Qinghuang Lin

Richard Stephan Wise

Samantha S H Tan

Jerome S Hubacek

Katie Lynn Nardi

Kevin Li Gu

Mohammed Haroon Alvi

Jeffrey S Marks

Samantha SiamHwa Tan

Wenbing Yang

Dries Dictus

Daniel Peter

Samantha Siamhwa Tan

Da Li

Yiwen Fan

Disclosed herein are methods and apparatuses for exposing an organic metal-oxide film to a blanket UV treatment prior to a lithographic patterning operation. A blanket UV treatment may be used to shift a solubility curve of the film, such that a lower EUV dose may be used to pattern the film. Additionally, a blanket UV treatment may be used after development to further cure the film.

Pre-exposure photoresist curing to enhance EUV lithographic performance

Dry development or dry removal of metal-containing extreme ultraviolet radiation (EUV) photoresist is performed in atmospheric conditions or performed in process tools without vacuum equipment. Dry removal of the metal-containing EUV photoresist may be performed under atmospheric pressure or over-atmospheric pressure. Dry removal of the metal-containing EUV photoresist may be performed with exposure to an air environment or with non-oxidizing gases. A process chamber or module may be modified or integrated to perform dry removal of the metal-containing EUV photoresist with baking, wafer cleaning, wafer treatment, or other photoresist processing function. In some embodiments, the process chamber for dry removal of the metal-containing EUV photoresist includes a heating assembly for localized heating of a semiconductor substrate and a movable discharge nozzle for localized gas delivery above the semiconductor substrate.

Process tool for dry removal of photoresist

Methods for making thin-films on semiconductor substrates, which may be patterned using EUV, include: depositing the organometallic polymer-like material onto the surface of the semiconductor substrate, exposing the surface to EUV to form a pattern, and developing the pattern for later transfer to underlying layers. The depositing operations may be performed by chemical vapor deposition (CVD), atomic layer deposition (ALD), and ALD with a CVD component, such as a discontinuous, ALD-like process in which metal precursors and counter-reactants are separated in either time or space.

Integrated dry processes for patterning radiation photoresist patterning

Dry development of resists can be useful, for example, to form a patterning mask in the context of high-resolution patterning. Dry development may be advantageously accomplished by a method of processing a semiconductor substrate including providing in a process chamber a photopatterned resist on a substrate layer on a semiconductor substrate, and dry developing the photopatterned resist by removing either an exposed portion or an unexposed portion of the resist by a dry development process comprising exposure to a chemical compound to form a resist mask. The resist may be an EUV-sensitive organo-metal oxide or organo-metal-containing thin film EUV resist.

Dry development of resists

Development of resists are useful, for example, to form a patterning mask in the context of high-resolution patterning. Development can be accomplished using a halide-containing chemistry such as a hydrogen halide. A metal-containing resist film may be deposited on a semiconductor substrate using a dry or wet deposition technique. The resist film may be an EUV-sensitive organo-metal oxide or organo-metal-containing thin film resist. After exposure, the photopatterned metal-containing resist is developed using wet or dry development.

Photoresist development with halide chemistries

Imaging layers on the surface of a substrate may be patterned using next generation lithographic techniques, and the resulting patterned film may be used as a lithographic mask, for example, for production of a semiconductor device.

Methods for making hard masks useful in next-generation lithography

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Timothy William Weidman