Photolithography Processes with Photosensitive Resins for Semi-conductor Technologies with patterns smaller than 90 nm : physical chemical mechanisms inducing the pattern roughness – NANORUGO

The 2001 “International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors” (ITRS), which defines the specifications and objectives to be reached for the next generation components for the microelectronic industry, introduced for the first time a new criterion the “Line Edge Roughness (LER)” of the photolithography patterns. These patterns are produced with the help of photosensitive resins, a key processing step in the semiconductor manufacturing. The best microlithography resins allow today LER of the order of 5 to 7 nm. This microlithography pattern roughness limits the possibility to control accurately the length of the transistor gate increasing, thus, it’s leaking currents. The aim of this project is to understand the physical chemical mechanisms inducing the LER and optimize the synthesis and formulation of the photosensitive resins in order to reach acceptable values for this new criterion. This project presents a strong multidisciplinary character. Thanks to the partnership and complementarities between the teams of STMicroelectronics, Atomic Energy Agency, Laboratory of Polymer Engineering for High Technologies, Department of Photochemistry and Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials Corp. We will carry out this project starting from the synthesis of new polymer resins and their formulation with functional additives until the optimization of the photolithography processing step with tests and its integration to a manufacturing line for components of the future microelectronics.