The Application of Heavily Dyed Photoresist to Wafer Production

This article describes the use of heavily dyed photoresist in patterning wafers in production. The dyed resist is made by adding the commercially available 1‐(2‐pyridylazo)‐2‐naphthol dye to AZ 1350J‐SF photoresist, which is then exposed using g‐line steppers and spray‐developed with metal‐ion‐free developer. The resultant images have greater than 80° wall angles and excellent linewidth control over reflective topography. The resist is characterized with respect to linewidth control over large islands, and wafer‐to‐wafer and across‐the‐wafer uniformity.