193nm immersion lithography is the most promising lithographic technology for the semiconductor device manufacturing of 65nm node and below. The advantage of 193nm immersion lithography is the possibility of wider depth of focus (DOF) and higher resolution through the hyper NA lens design greater than 1.0 (1-3) . In this paper, we investigated the topcoat material film characteristics and evaluated its performance to determine the chemical properties needed for a practical level. The stage scan speed capability evaluation, which is one of the best available method to test the suppression or generation of small water droplet remains on the topcoat film at high-speed stage scan during immersion exposure, was used. And finally we investigated the defectivity of topcoat process utilizing the Nikon EET. The static and dynamic contact angles of water droplet were investigated to characterize the topcoat material. The tilting sliding and receding angle, the contact angle of water droplet at the dynamic state, were important parameters to characterize the topcoat materials and have good correlation to wafer stage scan speed capability and immersion defect count reduction.

Double patterning with 193nm immersion lithography is generally recognized as a candidate for 32nm hp node and possibly beyond with recent progress. LLE (Litho-Litho-Etch) could be good candidate for double patterning method because of its simplicity but the good solution hasn't been proposed yet.In last year, freezing free Posi/Nega process was introduced as candidate for LLE process. But that had an issue that the resolution of negative tone resist was little bit poor for 1L/3S pattern compared with positive tone. Thus it's better to choose positive tone as 2 nd resist for this reason. And then Posi/Posi process without any freezing material has been investigated and successfully established to image double patterning.Posi/Posi process without any freezing material has successfully achieved to image below 32nm hp. Furthermore contact hole imaging was succeeded by using cross-line method and image reverse method.We present the productivity study of freezing free Posi/Posi process on Cross-lined contact hole, critical resolution for pitch splitting and reverse imaging for contact hole.