Development procedures

Developers are designed to remove exposed areas of positive-tone resists and unexposed areas of negative-tone resists without leaving any residuals. The respective other areas of the wafer are ideally not attacked by the developer and remain with a film thickness identical to the initial value.

Removers in general

Removers have the task to completely dissolve all resist structures or residues after the respective techonological process step (doting, etching or others) is finished.

Stopper

Stoppers in the classical sense are mainly used for electron beam lithography with PMMA resists. These substances have the function to interrupt the development process after a development of exposed PMMA films and to cleanly rinse off the developer solvent which now contains residual PMMA.

Ageing of developer

Aqueous-alkaline developers are subjected to ageing, due to an uptake of CO 2 from the air. Buffered aqueous-alkaline developers ( AR 300-26, -35 ) are more stable in this respect than developers of the AR 300-40 -series containing TMAH.