A system and/or method for coating a substrate. The system may include a chuck for holding and rotating the substrate, a dispensing subsystem for dispensing a coating material onto the substrate, and a shield member. The shield member may be movable towards and away from the substrate during the coating procedure. The shield member may have an inverted funnel shape. The shield member may include a central chamber through which a solvent vapor flows and a peripheral chamber that is fluidly separated from the central chamber through which a gas flows. During a coating procedure, the shield member may be moved very close to the substrate and the solvent vapor and gas may flow onto the substrate to create a solvent rich ambient around the substrate and prevent aerosols of the coating material from redepositing onto the substrate after being flung off due to spinning of the substrate.

A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device includes forming a protective layer over a substrate. The hydrophilicity of the protective layer is reduced. A resist layer is formed over the protective layer, and the resist layer is patterned.

Manufacturing a low-K dielectric organic/inorganic aerogel composite material and its application are provided. The manufacturing method comprises: (1) mixing; (2) hydrolysis; (3) condensation; (4) aging; (5) drying; (6) impregnating polymer solution; (7) phase separation and drying; and (8) cross-linking and curing. The manufacturing method can produce a low-K dielectric organic/inorganic aerogel composite material having a high strength. The low-K dielectric aerogel is in a porous structure, and its porosity is higher than 70% and its density is from 0.12 g/cm.sup.3 to 0.45 g/cm.sup.3. The dielectric property of the low-K dielectric aerogel decreases along with an increase of its porosity, wherein a dielectric constant thereof is from 1.28 to 1.89, and a dielectric loss thereof is from 0.052 to 0.023. The low-k dielectric aerogel can be used for a dielectric layer in a high-frequency circuit, an insulation layer in a semiconductor device or a microwave circuit in a communication integrated circuit.

The present disclosure provides example embodiments relating to conductive features, such as metal contacts, vias, lines, etc., and methods for forming those conductive features. In an embodiment, portions of an adhesion layer, barrier layer and/or seed layer is protected by a layer of an organic mask material as portions of the adhesion layer, barrier layer and/or seed layer are removed. The layer of organic mask material is modified to improve its resistance to penetration by wet etchants used to remove exposed portions of the adhesion layer, barrier layer and/or seed layer. An example modification includes treating the layer of organic mask material with a surfactant that is absorbed into the layer of organic mask material.

A structure body includes a base material and a siloxane based molecular membrane formed on the base material by use of an organic compound represented by Formula (1) or Formula (2): ##STR00001##
wherein any one of R1 to R5 is an amino group, others of R1 to R5 are each independently hydrogen or an alkyl group, R7 to R9 are each independently any one of hydroxy group, alkoxy group, alkyl group, and phenyl group on condition that one or more of R7 to R9 are each independently a hydroxy group or an alkoxy group, and R6 is an alkyl group.

A microelectronic device is formed by dispensing discrete amounts of a mixture of photoresist resin and solvents from droplet-on-demand sites onto a wafer to form a first photoresist sublayer, while the wafer is at a first temperature which allows the photoresist resin to attain less than 10 percent thickness non-uniformity. The wafer moves under the droplet-on-demand sites in a first direction to form the first photoresist sublayer. A portion of the solvents in the first photoresist sublayer is removed. A second photoresist sublayer is formed on the first photoresist sublayer using the droplet-on-demand sites while the wafer is at a second temperature to attain less than 10 percent thickness non-uniformity in the combined first and second photoresist sublayers. The wafer moves under the droplet-on-demand sites in a second direction for the second photoresist sublayer, opposite from the first direction.

A silicon-containing composition includes: a first polysiloxane; a second polysiloxane different from the first polysiloxane; and a solvent. The first polysiloxane includes a group which includes at least one selected from the group consisting of an ester bond, a carbonate structure, and a cyano group. The second polysiloxane includes a substituted or unsubstituted hydrocarbon group having 1 to 20 carbon atoms.

Provided is a semiconductor device. The semiconductor device includes a wafer; an etch stop layer on the wafer; a lower mold layer on the etch stop layer; an intermediate supporter layer on the lower mold layer; an upper mold layer on the intermediate supporter layer; an upper supporter layer on the upper mold layer; and a hard mask structure on the upper supporter layer, wherein the hard mask structure includes a first hard mask layer on the upper supporter layer and a second hard mask layer on the first hard mask layer, one of the first hard mask layer and the second hard mask layer includes a first organic layer including a SOH containing C, H, O, and N, and the other one of the first hard mask layer and the second hard mask layer includes a second organic layer including an SOH containing C, H, and O.

Example embodiments may provide methods for determining a quality of a film in spin coating process. The methods may include capturing images of portions of the film using an imaging device while coating the film on a substrate using a spinner. The imaging device may include SPCs and lens and/or SLMs. The methods may also include determining whether a characteristic of the film matches to a standard based on the images of the portions of the film. The method may further include performing detecting that the quality of the film is optimal in response to determining that the characteristic of the film matches to the standard or detecting that the quality of the film is not optimal in response to determining that the characteristic of the film does not match to the standard.

A substrate treatment method for treating a substrate, includes: applying a coating solution containing an organometallic complex, a solvent, and an additive to the substrate to form a solution film of the coating solution; heating the substrate on which the solution film of the coating solution has been formed, to form an organic constituent-containing metal oxide film being a metal oxide film containing an organic constituent contained in the additive; performing dry etching using the organic constituent-containing metal oxide film as a mask; removing the organic constituent in the organic constituent-containing metal oxide film after the dry etching; and removing, by wet etching, a film obtained by removing the organic constituent from the organic constituent-containing metal oxide film.