A positive resist composition is provided comprising two onium salts, a base polymer comprising acid labile group-containing recurring units, and an organic solvent. The positive resist composition forms a pattern having PED stability and improved properties including DOF, LWR, and controlled footing profile.

A multiple charged particle beam writing apparatus includes a margined block region generation circuit to generate plural margined block regions each formed by adding a margin region to the periphery of each block region of plural block regions obtained by dividing the writing region of the target object, a detection circuit to detect a defective beam in multiple charged particle beams, a specifying circuit to specify, for each defective beam detected, a position irradiated with the defective beam, and an affiliation determination circuit to determine a margined block region, in the plural margined block regions, to which the position irradiated with the defective beam belongs, based on conditions set according to a sub-block region, in plural sub-block regions acquired by dividing the margined block region, in which the position irradiated with the defective beam in the multiple charged particle beams is located.

Organometallic solutions have been found to provide high resolution radiation based patterning using thin coatings. The patterning can involve irradiation of the coated surface with a selected pattern and developing the pattern with a developing agent to form the developed image. The patternable coatings may be susceptible to positive-tone patterning or negative-tone patterning based on the use of an organic developing agent or an aqueous acid or base developing agent. The radiation sensitive coatings can comprise a metal oxo/hydroxo network with organic ligands. A precursor solution can comprise an organic liquid and metal polynuclear oxo-hydroxo cations with organic ligands having metal carbon bonds and/or metal carboxylate bonds.

A positive resist composition comprising a base polymer comprising recurring units (a) having the structure of an ammonium salt of an iodized or brominated phenol, and recurring units (b1) having an acid labile group-substituted carboxyl group and/or recurring units (b2) having an acid labile group-substituted phenolic hydroxyl group exhibits a high sensitivity, high resolution, low edge roughness and dimensional uniformity, and forms a pattern of good profile after exposure and development.

A negative resist composition comprising a polymer comprising recurring units having at least two acid-eliminatable hydroxyl or alkoxy groups in the molecule is effective for forming a resist pattern having a high resolution and minimal LER while minimizing defects.

An exemplary semiconductor fabrication stack includes underlying layers; an organic planarization layer atop the underlying layers; a metal oxide hardmask atop the organic planarization layer and doped with both carbon and nitrogen; and an organic photoresist directly atop the doped metal oxide hardmask. In one or more embodiments, the doped metal oxide hardmask exhibits a water contact angle of greater than 80°.

The present invention relates to a composition comprises at least one random copolymer having at least one repeat unit of structure (1), The present invention also relates to novel processes for forming patterns using this novel crosslinked layer on a substrate by enable a film of a block copolymer coated on the novel crosslinked layer to undergo self-assembly. ##STR00001##

Organometallic solutions have been found to provide high resolution radiation based patterning using thin coatings. The patterning can involve irradiation of the coated surface with a selected pattern and developing the pattern with a developing agent to form the developed image. The patternable coatings may be susceptible to positive-tone patterning or negative-tone patterning based on the use of an organic developing agent or an aqueous acid or base developing agent. The radiation sensitive coatings can comprise a metal oxo/hydroxo network with organic ligands. A precursor solution can comprise an organic liquid and metal polynuclear oxo-hydroxo cations with organic ligands having metal carbon bonds and/or metal carboxylate bonds.

Disclosed is a resin including a structural unit represented by formula (I) and a structural unit represented by formula (a2-A), and a resist composition: ##STR00001## wherein R.sup.1 represents a hydrogen atom or a methyl group; L.sup.1 and L.sup.2 each represent —O— or —S—; s1 represents an integer of 1 to 3; s2 represents an integer of 0 to 3; R.sup.a50 represents a hydrogen atom, a halogen atom, or an alkyl group which may have a halogen atom; R.sup.a51 represents a halogen atom, a hydroxy group, an alkyl group, an alkoxy group, an alkylcarbonyl group or the like; A.sup.a50 represents a single bond or *—X.sup.a51-(A.sup.a52-X.sup.a52).sub.nb—; A.sup.a52 represents an alkanediyl group; X.sup.a51 and X.sup.a52 each represent —O—, —CO—O— or —O—CO—; nb represents 0 or 1; and mb represents an integer of 0 to 4.

A positive resist composition comprising a base polymer comprising recurring units having a nitrogen-containing tertiary ester structure exhibits a high sensitivity, high resolution, low edge roughness (LER, LWR) and small size variation, and forms a pattern of good profile after exposure and development.