<title>New three-component aqueous base developable negative-resist systems incorporating chemical amplification and tunable sensitivities</title>

A series of new polyfunctional latent electrophiles capable of acting as crosslinkers in the photoimaging of aromatic polymers has been prepared and tested in chemically amplified photoresist formulations. Extremely high sensitivities have been achieved with a variety of modes of irradiations: deep-UV (DUV) (ca. 0.1 - 0.3 mJ/cm<SUP>2</SUP>), E-beam (&lt; 1 (mu) C/cm<SUP>2</SUP>) and x ray (ca. 15 mJ/cm<SUP>2</SUP>). In some cases, the sensitivities of these materials are so high that they have surpassed the capabilities of many existing exposure tools, making it desirable to lower them. This can be achieved through the addition of an electron rich species to the resist formulations to partially capture the photogenerated acid. It was shown that there is a linear correlation between the amount of additive and the sensitivities of the resulting resists.