The development process is important to lithography, particularly as the size of pattern features continues to shrink. The traditional developer, tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH), has faced challenges with these reductions in size. The quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) method is commonly employed to measure the dissolution rate of the resist. Additionally, changes in the impedance of QCM can monitor energy loss during development. However, the potential of impedance information has not been fully exploited. This study uses simulation to analyze the changes in frequency and impedance throughout the development process, focusing on the diffusion process of polymer molecules. The reproduction of QCM charts revealed that impedance can provide insights not only into the dissolution rate of the resist but also into the viscosity near the interface between the developer and the top layer of the resist. Moreover, the diffusion constant of polymer molecules in developers can also be estimated for various developers.
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