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Over-coating agent for forming fine patterns and a method of forming fine patterns using such agent

a technology of over-coating agent and fine pattern, which is applied in the direction of adhesive types, coatings, photosensitive material processing, etc., can solve the problems of significant variation in pattern dimensions, difficulty in controlling the thickness of resist pattern layers to be formed on the sidewalls of the wafer, and difficulty in maintaining the in-plane uniformity of wafers, so as to improve the thermal shrinkage of over-coating agent and achieve effective fine pattern formation , the effect of high ability to control th

Inactive Publication Date: 2009-06-11
SUGETA YOSHIKI +2
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

"The present invention provides an over-coating agent for forming fine patterns that can effectively increase the thermal shrinkage of the agent during heat treatment, resulting in finer patterns with controlled pattern dimensions. The agent contains a water-soluble polymer and an amide group-containing monomer or a water-soluble polymer with at least (meth)acrylamide as its monomeric components. The invention also provides a method of forming fine patterns by covering a substrate with the over-coating agent, then applying heat treatment to shrink the agent and remove it to form fine patterns. The heat treatment is performed at a temperature that does not cause thermal fluidizing of the photoresist patterns on the substrate."

Problems solved by technology

However, in these methods, it is difficult to control the thickness of layers to be formed on the sidewalls of resist patterns.
In addition, the in-plane heat dependency of wafers is as great as ten-odd nanometers per degree Celsius, so it is extremely difficult to keep the in-plane uniformity of wafers by means of the heater employed in current fabrication of semiconductor devices and this leads to the problem of occurrence of significant variations in pattern dimensions.
On the other hand, it is difficult to control the resist deformation and fluidizing on account of heat treatment, so it is not easy to provide a uniform resist pattern in a wafer's plane.
However, polyvinyl alcohol is not highly soluble in water and cannot be readily removed completely by washing with water, introducing difficulty in forming a pattern of good profile.
The pattern formed is not completely satisfactory in terms of stability over time.
In addition, polyvinyl alcohol cannot be applied efficiently by coating.
Because of these and other problems, the method disclosed in JP-7-45510A has yet to be adopted commercially.

Method used

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  • Over-coating agent for forming fine patterns and a method of forming fine patterns using such agent
  • Over-coating agent for forming fine patterns and a method of forming fine patterns using such agent
  • Over-coating agent for forming fine patterns and a method of forming fine patterns using such agent

Examples

Experimental program
Comparison scheme
Effect test

example 1

[0080]A copolymer of acrylic acid and vinylpyrrolidone [5.83 g; acrylic acid / vinylpyrrolidone=2:1 (polymerization ratio)], triethanolamine (0.53 g), acrylamide (0.58 g) and “PLY-SURF A210G”, product of Dai-ichi Kogyo Seiyaku Co., as phosphate esters of polyoxyethylene surfactant (0.06 g) were dissolved in water (93 g) to prepare an over-coating agent.

[0081]A substrate was whirl coated with a positive-acting photoresist TArF-7a-52 EM (product of Tokyo Ohka Kogyo Co., Ltd.), and baked at 115° C. for 90 seconds to form a photoresist layer in a thickness of 0.40 μm.

[0082]The photoresist layer was exposed with a laser exposure unit (Nikon S-302 of Nikon Corp.), subjected to heat treatment at 100° C. for 90 seconds and developed with an aqueous solution of 2.38 mass % TMAH (tetramethylammonium hydroxide) to form photoresist patterns which defined hole patterns with an each diameter of 161.0 nm.

[0083]Then above-described over-coating agent was applied onto the substrate including the hole ...

example 2

[0084]A copolymer of acrylic acid and vinylpyrrolidone [6.14 g; acrylic acid / vinylpyrrolidone=2:1 (polymerization ratio)], glycerol (0.18 g), acrylamide (0.62 g) and “PLYSURF A210G”, product of Dai-ichi Kogyo Seiyaku Co., as phosphate esters of polyoxyethylene surfactant (0.06 g) were dissolved in water (93 g) to prepare an over-coating agent.

[0085]Then above-described over-coating agent was applied onto the substrate including the hole patterns (each diameter of patterns: 161.0 nm) which was prepared in the same manner as described in EXAMPLE 1, and subjected to heat treatment at 150° C. for 60 seconds. Subsequently; the over-coating agent was removed using pure water at 23° C. The each diameter of the hole patterns was reduced to 121.7 nm.

example 3

[0086]A copolymer of acrylic acid and vinylpyrrolidone [6.14 g; acrylic acid / vinylpyrrolidone=2:1 (polymerization ratio)], glycerol (0.18 g), methacrylamide (0.62 g) and “PLYSURF A210G”, product of Dai-ichi Kogyo Seiyaku Co., as phosphate esters of polyoxyethylene surfactant (0.06 g) were dissolved in water (93 g) to prepare an over-coating agent.

[0087]Then above-described over-coating agent was applied onto the substrate including the hole patterns (each diameter of patterns: 161.0 nm) which was prepared in the same manner as described in EXAMPLE 1, and subjected to heat treatment at 150° C. for 60 seconds. Subsequently, the over-coating agent was removed using pure water at 23° C. The each diameter of the hole patterns was reduced to 122.6 nm.

[Second Type of the Over-Coating Agent for Forming Fine Patterns]

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Abstract

It is disclosed an over-coating agent for forming fine patterns which is applied to cover a substrate having thereon photoresist patterns and allowed to shrink under heat so that the spacing between adjacent photoresist patterns is lessened, with the applied film of the over-coating agent being removed substantially completely to form or define fine trace patterns, further characterized by containing either a water-soluble polymer and an amide group-containing monomer or a water-soluble polymer which contains at least (meth)acrylamide as a monomeric component. Also disclosed is a method of forming fine-line patterns using any one of said over-coating agents. According to the invention, the thermal shrinkage of the over-coating agent for forming fine patterns in the heat treatment can be extensively increased, and one can obtain fine-line patterns which exhibit good profiles while satisfying the characteristics required of semiconductor devices.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]This invention relates to an over-coating agent for forming fine patterns in the field of photolithographic technology and a method of forming fine-line patterns using such agent. More particularly, the invention relates to an over-coating agent for forming or defining fine-line patterns, such as hole patterns and trench patterns, that can meet today's requirements for higher packing densities and smaller sizes of semiconductor devices.BACKGROUND ART[0002]In the manufacture of electronic components such as semiconductor devices and liquid-crystal devices, there is employed the photolithographic technology which, in order to perform a treatment such as etching on the substrate, first forms a film (photoresist layer) over the substrate using a so-called radiation-sensitive photoresist which is sensitive to activating radiations, then performs exposure of the film by selective illumination with an activating radiation, performs development to dissolve away the phot...

Claims

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Application Information

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Patent Type & Authority Applications(United States)
IPC IPC(8): B05D3/00C08K5/20C09D101/00C09D163/00G03F7/40H01L21/027
CPCH01L2051/0063G03F7/40H10K85/6565
Inventor SUGETA, YOSHIKIKANEKO, FUMITAKETACHIKAWA, TOSHIKAZU
Owner SUGETA YOSHIKI
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