Photoresist materials described herein may include various types of tin (Sn) clusters having one or more types of ligands. As an example, a photoresist material described herein may include tin clusters bearing two or more different types of carboxylate ligands. As another example, a photoresist material described herein may include tin oxide clusters that include carbonate ligands. The two or more different types of carboxylate ligands and the carbonate ligands may reduce, minimize, and/or prevent crystallization of the photoresist materials described herein, which may increase the coating performance of the photoresist materials and may decrease the surface roughness of photoresist layers formed using the photoresist materials described herein.

An object of the present invention is to provide: a compound containing an imide group which is not only cured under film formation conditions of inert gas as well as air and has excellent heat resistance and properties of filling and planarizing a pattern formed on a substrate, but can also form an organic underlayer film with favorable adhesion to a substrate, and a material for forming an organic film containing the compound. A material for forming an organic film, including: (A) a compound for forming an organic film shown by the following general formula (1A); and (B) an organic solvent, ##STR00001## noting that in the general formula (1B), when W.sub.1 represents ##STR00002##  R.sub.1 does not represent any of ##STR00003##

Method of manufacturing a semiconductor device, includes forming a protective layer over substrate having a plurality of protrusions and recesses. The protective layer includes polymer composition including polymer having repeating units of one or more of:

##STR00001##

Wherein a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, and i are each independently H, —OH, —ROH, —R(OH).sub.2, —NH.sub.2, —NHR, —NR.sub.2, —SH, —RSH, or —R(SH).sub.2, wherein at least one of a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, and i on each repeating unit is not H. R, R.sub.1, and R.sub.2 are each independently a C1-C10 alkyl group, a C3-C10 cycloalkyl group, a C1-C10 hydroxyalkyl group, a C2-C10 alkoxy group, a C2-C10 alkoxy alkyl group, a C2-C10 acetyl group, a C3-C10 acetylalkyl group, a C1-C10 carboxyl group, a C2-C10 alkyl carboxyl group, or a C4-C10 cycloalkyl carboxyl group, and n is 2-1000. A resist layer is formed over the protective layer, and the resist layer is patterned.

A substrate processing apparatus for processing a substrate to be measured by a film thickness measurement device, includes: a heat treatment part configured to heat-treat a substrate coated with a coating film; and a fluid supply part configured to supply a fluid, which suppresses variations in a film thickness over time until the film thickness is measured by the film thickness measurement device, to the substrate during or after the heat-treatment by the heat treatment part.

A technique for suppressing a metal component from remaining at a bottom of a mask pattern when the mask pattern is formed using a metal-containing resist film. A developable anti reflection film 103 is previously formed below a resist film 104. Further, after exposing and developing the wafer W, TMAH is supplied to the wafer W to remove a surface of the antireflection film 103 facing a bottom of the recess pattern 110 of the resist film 104. Therefore, the metal component 105 can be suppressed from remaining at the bottom of the recess pattern 110. Therefore, when the SiO.sub.2 film 102 is subsequently etched using the pattern of the resist film 104, the etching is not hindered, so that defects such as bridges can be suppressed.

A method of forming an interconnect structure for semiconductor devices is described. The method comprises etching a patterned interconnect stack for form first conductive lines and expose a top surface of a first etch stop layer; etching the first etch stop layer to form second conductive lines and expose a top surface of a barrier layer; and forming a self-aligned via.

A method of forming a semiconductor arrangement includes forming a gate dielectric layer over a semiconductor layer. A gate electrode layer is formed over the gate dielectric layer. A first gate mask is formed over the gate electrode layer. The gate electrode layer is etched using the first gate mask as an etch template to form a first gate electrode. A first dopant is implanted into the semiconductor layer using the first gate mask and the first gate electrode as an implantation template to form a first doped region in the semiconductor layer.

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.

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 patterning method includes forming a multilayer photoresist stack on a substrate. The multilayer photoresist stack includes a first layer of a wet photoresist, deposited by spin-on deposition, over a second layer of a dry photoresist, deposited by vapor deposition. The multilayer photoresist stack is exposed to a first pattern of actinic radiation including relative, spatially-varying doses of actinic radiation and including high-dose regions, mid-dose regions and low-dose regions. The multilayer photoresist stack and the first pattern of actinic radiation are configured such that after the exposing the multilayer photoresist stack to the first pattern of actinic radiation, in the high-dose regions, developability of both the first layer and the second layer is changed; in the mid-dose regions, developability of the first layer is changed while developability of the second layer is unchanged; in the low-dose regions, developability of both the first layer and the second layer is unchanged.