Novel spin-on organic hardmask with high plasma etch resistance

Abstract

In recent years for memory devices under 70nm using ArF lithography, spin-on organic hardmask has become an attractive alternative process to amorphous carbon layer hardmark (ACL) in mass production due to ACL hardmask's limited capacity, high cost-of-ownership, and low process efficiency in spite of its excellent etch performance. However, insufficient plasma etch resistance of spin-on hardmask makes the etch process an issue resulting in inadequate vertical profiles, large CD bias, and narrow etch process window compared to ACL hardmask. In order to be able to apply these spin on hardmasks to varies layers including critical layers, the aforementioned problems need to be resolved and verified using several evaluation methods including etch pattern evaluation. In this paper, we report the synthesis of novel organic spin-on hardmasks (C-SOH) that incorporate various fused aromatic moieties into polymer chain and the evaluation of etch performance using dry etch tools. Organic spin-on hardmasks with 79-90 wt% carbon contents were synthesized in-house. Oxygen and fluorine based plasma etch processes were used to evaluate the etch resistance of the C-SOH. The results show our 3rd generation C-SOH has etch profiles comparable to that of ACL in a 1:1 dense pattern.