Line Edge Roughness and Line Width Roughness Analysis of Molecular Simulation for Chemically Amplified Resists

Abstract

For the below 22 nm pattern formation, resists are required higher resolution, lower line edge roughness (LER) (or line width roughness (LWR)), and improved sensitivity. However, those characteristics have the uncertain triangle relation and are required trade-off. In this paper, molecular-scale simulation of molecular resist based on Monte Carlo due to master equation is described. It is shown analytically that the equations of modeling Monte Carlo are similar as rate equations of lithography modeling. Simulation results of 3σ LER are agreed with experimental results. The impact of various parameters, which are aerial image contrast, photoacid generator (PAG), acid diffusion length, quencher, acid and quencher diffusion coefficients (DCs), and polymer size, on LER in a chemically amplified photoresist is investigated with a stochastic simulator.