Advanced rinse process alternatives for reduction of photolithography development cycle defects

Nickolas L. Brakensiek; Peng Zhang; Danielle King; Craig Ghelli

doi:10.1117/12.598819

4 May 2005 Advanced rinse process alternatives for reduction of photolithography development cycle defects

Nickolas L. Brakensiek, Peng Zhang, Danielle King, Craig Ghelli

Proceedings Volume 5753, Advances in Resist Technology and Processing XXII; (2005) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.598819
Event: Microlithography 2005, 2005, San Jose, California, United States

Abstract

As linewidths continue to decrease in size, preventing smaller defects is becoming critical to maintaining yield. Defects that are caused during the development cycle and attach themselves to the BARC surface, such as water spots or photoresist residues, have always been a concern and have been usually removed at the expense of throughput. Various options are available to reduce these types of defects but each has disadvantages. One such example is a double puddle develop process. The disadvantage of this process is that the exposure dose may have to be changed. Another example is increasing the rinse time to several minutes with an associated reduction in throughput. This paper will discuss rinse alternatives that have been able to reduce develop type defects by up to 70% while also reducing the wafer-to-wafer variation by up to 80%. This process may have a dramatic increase in throughput by keeping the total rinse time under 20 seconds and may have minimal (less than 2% change) impact on measured linewidth. These rinse processes utilize a quick succession of changing spin speeds and accelerations that are acceptable for 300-mm wafer processing. Surfactant-containing rinse solutions designed to reduce line collapse in 193-nm photoresists were also investigated to determine their effectiveness in reducing post-develop defects in concert with the newly developed water rinse process. The rinse processes that will be discussed will have the flexibility of integrating the surfactant-containing rinse solution while maintaining the shortest possible cycle time. At the same time these processes will reduce defects and pattern collapse.

Citation Download Citation

Nickolas L. Brakensiek, Peng Zhang, Danielle King, and Craig Ghelli "Advanced rinse process alternatives for reduction of photolithography development cycle defects", Proc. SPIE 5753, Advances in Resist Technology and Processing XXII, (4 May 2005); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.598819

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