Resist edge roughness with reducing pattern size

Recently, resist edge roughness with reducing pattern size has become a serious problem. We investigated the roughness of chemically amplified, positive-tone resists, experimentally. To reduce the roughness, we added a quencher with strong basicity to the resist, and observed sub quarter micron nested lines. As a result, the roughness was improved with increasing the quencher concentration, especially in 0.15 micrometers nested line patterns. Adding quencher was not too much effective for the larger size patterns. The acid concentration in resist was increased by adding quencher, because the nominal dose became large by that. It was also indicated experimentally that generated acid concentration at pattern edge was nearly equal to that of quencher at nominal dose. The nominal dose was determined by quencher concentration. We defined effective acid concentration as remaining acid concentration after quenching. This effective acid concentration increased with increasing quencher concentration too. The roughness seemed to be generated when effective acid concentration profile was lowered. It is indicated that the resist edge roughness with reducing pattern size can be expected from its effective acid concentration profile.