Horizontal development bias in negative tone development of photoresist

摘要

Aspects of the disclosed techniques relate to techniques for resist simulation in lithography. Local minimal light intensity values are determined for a plurality of sample points in boundary regions of an aerial image of a feature to be printed on a resist coating, wherein each of the local minimal light intensity values represents a minimum light intensity value for an area surrounding one of the plurality of sample points. Based on the local minimal light intensity values, horizontal development bias values for the plurality of sample points are then determined. Finally, resist contour data of the feature are determined based at least on the horizontal development bias values.