Lam Research has joined hands with Entegris and Gelest, a Mitsubishi Chemical Group company, to develop a dry photoresist for EUV lithography. If mass-produced, it is expected to replace existing wet resists that have stability issues as they require no cleaning and use less material.

Lam Research announced on the 12th (local time in the United States) that it has entered into an agreement with Entegris, Inc. and Gelest, Inc., a Mitsubishi Chemical Group company. (a Mitsubishi Chemical Group company) and Lam Research Corporation (Nasdaq: LRCX) announced a strategic partnership to ensure a stable supply of precursor chemicals for Lam Research’s innovative dry photoresist technology for EUV lithography used in next-generation semiconductor production by global semiconductor manufacturers.

Through this research and development (R&D) partnership on EUV dry resist technology, the three companies will collaborate on logic and DRAM development for next-generation devices ranging from machine learning and artificial intelligence to mobile devices.

They will also collaborate to accelerate the development of future cost-effective EUV dry resist solutions for high-NA (high numerical aperture) EUV patterning.

High-NA EUV is widely recognized as the patterning technology required for continued device scaling and semiconductor technology advancements over the next several decades.

Dry resists provide the high etch resistance and tunable thickness scaling deposition and development required to support the reduced depth of focus requirements of High-NA EUV.

The dry resist, first developed by Lam Research in collaboration with ASML and multinational semiconductor research institute IMEC, is said to improve the resolution, productivity, and yield of EUV lithography, solving key challenges associated with the development of next-generation DRAM and logic technologies.

Dry resist processes can provide low dose-to-surface (DtS) and dose defect performance, increasing EUV scanner productivity and reducing cost of ownership.

It also offers major sustainability benefits by saving energy and consuming five to ten times less raw materials compared to conventional resist processes.

DomesticIt is known that DNF is developing related precursor technology.

In relation to this, NH Investment & Securities researcher Do Hyeon-woo predicted that if mass production is successful, it will have a negative impact on wet resist companies such as TEL, Screen, Tokyo Ohka, and Dongjin Semichem, which have high market shares in existing coaters and developers.

This is analyzed as being because the process using existing wet resist raises stability and cost issues.

The existing photoresist process is performed using spin coating equipment, which drops wet resist onto a wafer and then rotates the wafer to evenly apply it. However, during this process, a large amount of resist is wasted, and the complexity of the material increases, so stability is known to have decreased compared to the past.

The recent large-scale process accidents at TSMC and Kioxia fabs are also being attributed to resist.

According to Do Hyun-woo, a researcher at NH Investment & Securities, dry resist technology enables lower doses and increased resolution compared to existing wet resists.

Dry resist uses the CVD process, which involves gasifying the material and then depositing it on the wafer by putting it into a chamber, which improves the ability to control the thickness of the film, and since no cleaning process is required, it is known to be relatively less prone to pattern collapse in high aspect ratio structures.