Optical single layer lift-off process

The lithography of the metal wiring layers is becoming the most confining technology in the era of VLSI (very large-scale integration), as more and more circuits have to be wired on the chip itself. The two competing technologies are subtractive etch (wet or dry), and additive metal lift-off. As lift-off needs no etching, it inherently offers cost and density advantages. It, however, requires an undercut photoresist profile. These undercuts can be achieved with an image-reversal process. The paper describes such a reversal process, especially tuned for lift-off applications. The result is a simple single-layer lift-off technology with excellent image quality.