Patent ID: 8668805

Claim:
An apparatus for etching a feature in an etch layer, below a photoresist mask, having at least one photoresist line having a pair of sidewalls ending at line ends, wherein the at least one photoresist line extends from one line end of the line ends to another line end of the line ends, comprising: a plasma processing chamber, comprising: a chamber wall forming a plasma processing chamber enclosure; a substrate support for supporting a substrate within the plasma processing chamber enclosure; a pressure regulator for regulating the pressure in the plasma processing chamber enclosure; at least one electrode for providing power to the plasma processing chamber enclosure for sustaining a plasma; a gas inlet for providing gas into the plasma processing chamber enclosure; and a gas outlet for exhausting gas from the plasma processing chamber enclosure; a gas source in fluid connection with the gas inlet, comprising: a polymer deposition gas source; a hardening gas source; and an etch layer etch gas source; and a controller controllably connected to the gas source and the at least one electrode, comprising: at least one processor; and non-transitory computer readable media, comprising: computer readable code for reducing the shrinkage of the sidewalls and the line ends of the photoresist line, comprising at least one cycle, wherein each cycle comprises: computer readable code for depositing a polymer layer over the photoresist line, wherein an amount of polymer on the line ends is greater than an amount of polymer on the sidewalls; computer readable code for hardening the polymer layer; computer readable code for etching the etch layer, wherein a line end shortening (LES) is less than or equal to 1, wherein the LES is defined as a ratio between the shortening of a length of a line and a shortening of a width of the line; and computer readable code for removing the photoresist.