Patent ID: 7888267

Claim:
A method of dry developing an anti-reflective coating (ARC) layer on a substrate, comprising: disposing a substrate comprising a multi-layer mask in a plasma processing system, wherein said multi-layer mask comprises a lithographic layer overlying a silicon-containing ARC layer and wherein said lithographic layer comprises a feature pattern formed therein using a lithographic process; establishing a process recipe configured to cause a reduction in an offset between a first critical dimension (CD) bias for nested structures in said feature pattern and a second CD bias for isolated structures in said feature pattern, wherein said first CD bias is measured as a first difference between a first CD for nested structures of said feature pattern in said lithographic layer and a second CD for nested structures of said feature pattern in said silicon-containing ARC layer and said second CD bias is measured as a second difference between a first CD for isolated structures of said feature pattern in said lithographic layer and a second CD for isolated structures of said feature pattern in said silicon-containing ARC layer; introducing a process gas to said plasma processing system according to said process recipe, said process gas comprising SF 6 ; forming plasma from said process gas in said plasma processing system according to said process recipe; and exposing said substrate to said plasma in order to transfer said feature pattern in said lithographic layer to said underlying silicon-containing ARC layer.