Patent ID: 7862982

Claim:
A lithographic line-trim process for reducing the linewidth of an image on a substrate while maintaining the lithographic process window, comprising the steps of: (a) applying a lithographic resist layer on a surface of a substrate and patterning and developing said lithographic resist layer to form a nm order node image having an initial linewidth; (b) overcoating said nm order node image with an acidic polymer to produce an acidic polymer coated image; (c) heating said acidic polymer coated image to produce a heat treated coating on said image, said heating being conducted at a temperature and for a time sufficient to reduce said initial linewidth to a subsequent narrowed linewidth; and (d) developing said heat treated coating to remove said acidic polymer and produce a free-standing trimmed lithographic feature on said substrate; (e) wherein said substrate is operatively associated with a hard mask material and said image comprises a first lithographic layer operatively associated with said hard mask material, and etching said first lithographic layer into said hard mask material and repeating said steps (a) to (d) to apply a second lithographic layer in a manner to form a pitch-split pattern on said substrate; said line-trim process producing a focus/expose process window having an expose latitude greater than the expose latitude obtained with an overexpose process.