Resist reflow process for arbitrary 32 nm node pattern

Abstract

In order to shrink down the contact hole which is usually much larger than other patterns, the resist reflow process (RRP) has been widely used. Various types, shapes, and pitches of contact hole arrays are made by RRP, but RRP was limited to be used only for contact hole patterns. The same RRP method is expanded to 32 nm node arbitrary and complex patterns including dense line and space patterns. There might be simple 1-dimensional patterns, but 2-dimensional proximity conflict patterns are difficult to make in general. Specially, the data split with proximity correction needs a lot of attention for double patterning. 32 nm node arbitrary patterns can be easily made by using RRP without complex data split.