Advanced negative resists using novel aminoplast crosslinkers

Current negative tone resists based on poly(4- hydroxystyrene) and aminoplast crosslinkers suffer from the limited solubility of commercially available crosslinkers in the most common casting solvents. The aminoplast crosslinkers also increase the dissolution rate of the base resin in aqueous alkaline developer. The lithographic performance of these resists is often limited by microbridging at high resolution. In this paper, synthesis of a series of glycoluril based aminoplast crosslinkers is described and the lithographic performance of resist formulations incorporating such compounds is discussed.