First, I would like to know the possible water uptake and permeability of water in HMDS coatings on silicon (w. native oxide), silicon nitride, and gold. I'm using a 5 min exposure to the HMDS on dehydrated surfaces i.e. same treatment for all the materials. Secondly, I have heard that HMDS shouldn't have any effect on gold but when spinning resist on gold coated wafers, the HMDS improves adhesion a lot compared to fx wafers coming from a 200 C furnace or a plasma asher (+100 C+low pressure). Any suggestions to what might happen on the gold? Thanks Peter