Photoresists in extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL)

The evolutionary advances in photosensitive material technology, together with the shortening of the exposure wavelength in the photolithography process, have enabled and driven the transistor scaling dictated by Moore's law for the last 50 years. Today, the shortening wavelength trend continues to improve the chips' performance over time by feature size miniaturization. The next-generation lithography technology for high-volume manufacturing (HVM) is extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL), using a light source with a wavelength of 13.5 nm. Here, we provide a brief introduction to EUVL and patterning requirements for sub-0-nm feature sizes from a photomaterial standpoint, discussing traditional and novel photoresists. Emphasis will be put on the novel class of metal-containing resists (MCRs) as well as their challenges from a manufacturing prospective.