Advancing EUV lithography and patterning: a new pathway to higher EUV lithography throughput

At the 2026 SPIE Advanced Lithography and Patterning Conference, imec demonstrated improved performance of metal-oxide resists (MORs), which have emerged as leading candidate resist materials for advanced EUV lithography – a cornerstone technology of the NanoIC pilot line.

As highlighted in imec's press release, imec researchers showed that the dose response of MORs can be improved by raising the oxygen concentration above atmospheric levels during the EUV lithography post-exposure bake step, a critical heat treatment step after EUV resist exposure and before resist development.

These findings show for the first time that carefully controlling the gas composition during key lithography steps can significantly cut the required EUV exposure dose, directly boosting the throughput of the EUV scanner and reducing process cost.

The results were achieved using BEFORCE, a unique EUV process and metrology platform developed by imec. BEFORCE allows performing EUV lithography steps in precisely controlled environments and assessing how this affects the performance and stability of resist materials.

Read the full press release