Tokyo Electron Limited

Wan Jae Park

Akiteru Ko

David L O'Meara

Lior Huli

Soo Doo Chae

A patterned photo resist layer (for example an EUV photo resist layer), which may exhibit line width roughness (LWR) and line edge roughness (LER) or scum is treated with a plasma treatment before subsequent etching processes. The plasma treatment reduces LWR, LER, and/or photo resist scum. In one exemplary embodiment, the plasma treatment may include a plasma formed using a gas having a boron and halogen compound. In one embodiment, the gas compound may be a boron and chlorine compound, for example boron trichloride (BCl) gas. In another embodiment, the gas compound may be a boron and fluorine compound, for example BFgases. The plasma treatment process may modify the photoresist surface to improve LWR, LER, and scum effects by removing roughness from the photo resist surface and removing photo resist residues which may case scumming.

Plasma treatment method to improve photo resist roughness and remove photo resist scum

Methods are disclosed that selectively deposit a protective material on the top regions of patterned photoresist layers, such patterned EUV photoresist layers, to provide a protective cap that reduces erosion damage during etch processes used for pattern transfer. Some deposition of the protective material on the sidewalls of the patterned photoresist layer is acceptable, and any deposition of the protective material on the underlying layer below the patterned photoresist layer is preferably thinner than the deposition at the top of the photoresist pattern. Further, the selective deposition of protective caps can be implemented, for example, through the application of high-rotation speeds to spatial atomic layer deposition (ALD) techniques. The selective deposition of protective caps increases the flexibility of options to improve etch resistance for various processes/materials.

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Albany, NY, United States of America

Wan Jae Park