Industrial Development of novel photoresists for high-NA EUV enabling UK-based semiconductor manufacturing scale-up

Semiconductors are embedded in everyday items (smartphones/computers) and high-tech industry-critical commodities (hypersonic weapons/stealth aircrafts). As industries continue to harness computer power, semiconductor dependence grows. However, semiconductor supply and value-chains are fragmented, complex and unstable, with manufacturing-critical specialisms clustered in politically volatile Indo-Pacific regions. With high-growth projections reported for the semiconductor industry, reducing unstable supply-chain bottlenecks by expanding semiconductor design and materials manufacturing is essential to ensure predicted unit-requirements are met. Photoresists are an essential component of semiconductor-manufacturing, providing surfaces for lithography circuit-printing. Microchip-miniaturisation has necessitated industry roll-out of Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUVL), which uses 13.5nm light wavelengths (compared to prior 248/193nm) to create smaller circuit-features. However, photoresist R&D has lagged, with manufacturers adapting 193nm resists, which lack sufficient absorbance/stability, resulting in failures to meet sensitivity/resolution/line-edge roughness (LER) requirements for 2023 and beyond. This project will, via collaboration between photoresist designer (Irresistible Materials) and chemicals manufacturers (Endeavour, a subsidiary of Robinson Brothers Group), focus on the optimisation of Irresistible Materials' patented photoresist, and scale-up of the complementary crosslinker, to produce a commercially viable photoresist system, ready for sale to semiconductor fabrication entities and OEMs.