Short, low temperature
annealing step following the coating of a wafer with a photoresist.
Note: The purpose of the soft bake is to (1) drive out remaining coating solvent from the
resist layer; (2) improve the adhesion of the
resist to the substrate; and (3) anneal the shear stresses introduced during spin-coating.
Source:
PAC, 2020, 92, 1861. 'Terminology of polymers in advanced lithography (IUPAC Recommendations 2020)' on page 1888 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2018-1215)