Recent progress in electron-beam a resists for advanced mask-making

Resists for advanced mask-making with high-voltage electron-beam writing tools have undergone dramatic changes over the last three decades. From PMMA and the other early chain-scission resists for micron dimensions to the aqueous-base-developable, dry-etchable chemically amplified systems being developed today, careful tuning of the chemistry and processing conditions of these resist systems has allowed the patterning of photomasks; of increasing complexity containing increasingly finer features. Most recently, our research efforts have been focused on a low-activation-energy chemically amplified resist based on ketal-protected poly(hydroxystyrene). These ketal resist systems, or KRSs, have undergone a series of optimization and evaluation cycles in order to fine-tune their performance for advanced mask-fabrication applications using the 75-kV IBM EL4+ vector scan e-beam exposure system. The experiments have led to an optimized formulation, KRS-XE, that exhibits superior lithographic performance and has a high level of processing robustness. In addition, we describe advanced formulations of KRS-XE incorporating organometallic species, which have shown superior dry-etch resistance to novolak-based resists in the Cr etch process while maintaining excellent lithographic performance. Finally, current challenges facing the implementation of a chemically amplified resist in the photomask manufacturing process are outlined, along with current approaches being pursued to extend the capabilities of KRS technology.