Evaluation of novel hydrophilic derivatives for chemically amplified EUV resists

EUV lithography is the most favorable process for high volume manufacturing of semiconductor devices beyond 1X nm half-pitch. Many efforts have revealed effective proton sources in acid generation in EUV resists, and the effective proton generation and the control of the generated acid diffusion are required to improve the breakthrough of the resolution - line width roughness - sensitivity(RLS) trade-off. To clarify the lithographic performance of these derivatives, we synthesized the acrylic terpolymers containing novel hydrophilic derivatives as model photopolymers and exposed the resist samples based on these polymers to EUV and EB radiation. On the basis of the lithographic performances of these resist samples, we evaluated the characteristics of hydrophilic derivatives upon exposure to EUV radiation. We discuss the relationship between the chemical structures of these derivatives and lithographic performance.