Prevention of Resist Pattern Collapse by Flood Exposure during Rinse Process

A resist hardening method that prevents resist pattern bending is described. In this method, a photo-crosslinking resist is flood exposed during rinsing. This exposure increases the crosslinking ratio of the resist, thus hardening the resist pattern before drying. Using this method, a 1.6-µm-thick 0.25-µm line-and-space pattern can be delineated without resist bending.