Commercial availability of 193 nanometer photoresists..........
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Story posted at 7:30 a.m. EST/4:30 a.m. PST, 2/24/98
193-nm photoresists to arrive soon
By Jack Robertson
SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Photoresists for 193-nanometer wavelength
lithography systems should be commercially available by the end of 1998 --
a year before the next-generation excimer laser itself is ready for test pilot
lines, according to presentations at SPIE Microlithogrpahy Conference here
on Monday.
Indeed, the first production use of 193-nm resists will be as retrofits into
current 248-nm systems, according to Robert Allen, head of 193-nmeter
lithography at IBM Corp.'s Almaden Research Center in nearby San Jose.
"The new 193-nm resists are showing such high transparency and improved
etch resistance that they can immediate increase the performance of existing
248-nm lithography system," Allen said. The IBM manager said he expected
a variety of proprietary 193-nm resists to come on the market, with chip
makers able to choose from a number of different products. He also expects
some of the new resists may prove to be optimum for different parts of
wafer processing.
"Some may be better for vias, while others may be best for feature sizes or
interconnect," Allen added.
Among the new 193-nm resist materials are: Cyclic Olefin, which IBM is
developing with B. F. Goodrich; attenuating copolymers being pursued by
Olin Corp. and Lucent Technologies; Cyclopolymers backed by Hitachi;
and bilayer resist from Olin; and acrylic resists being developed by Fujitsu.
IBM's Allen said single layer resists are still preferred by most chip makers,
although as the industry moves to smaller and smaller feature size
dimensions, bilayer resists may be required. |
