New coater/developer technologies for CD control and defectivity reduction towards 5 nm and smaller nodes

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography is now being introduced for the mass production of 7 nm process. In order to meet process requirements for 7 nm node, continuous work on coater/developer has been done to improve CD uniformity and defectivity. However, further improvements are still required especially for 5 nm or smaller nodes because of the increasing impact of stochastic failures. 2 The probability of such failures quickly increases with CD size, resulting in a very narrow defect process window. Therefore, strict control of CD is getting crucial to ensure stable yield in the future nodes. In this paper, optimization of processes has been explored to improve not only local CD variations, but also wafer uniformity and stability across batch processing. We will also present our latest technologies for the reduction of in-film particles in coated films and the optimization of development/rinse process for the reduction of residues and collapses.