CD controllability of chemically amplified resists for x-ray membrane mask fabrication

E-beam mask writer is an extremely important tool to fabricate the x-ray mask. E-beam writing process is required to have enough placement accuracy and CD controllability for 1X mask. A variable-shaped 100 kV e-beam mask writer EB-X3 has been developed for x-ray membrane mask fabrication and evaluated by using commercially available positive tone resists. We have shown that the high resolution of 50 nm L/S could be obtained for ZEP-520 resists by using the stable 100 kV EB writer. In this study we focus on the chemically amplified (CA) resists for x-ray membrane mask fabrication.