Through the years, 248-nm deep-UV (DUV) photolithography technologies have been used in sub 0.3 mu m microelectronics fabrication. In order to fundamentally understand the development behaviors of DUV photoresist and optimize the lithographic process accordingly, the dissolution kinetics of an advanced 248-nm DW photoresist OCG ARCH2 was studied by varying the concentrations of photo-acid-generator (PAG) and the cooling rate after post exposure bake (PEB). As popularly known, DUV photoresists are very sensitive to airborne contaminations from N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) or ammonia, etc. As an alternative method for thermal annealing, electron beam (E-beam) was employed to stabilize the DUV Photoresists in order to improve critical dimension (CD) control and post exposure delay (PED) stability. It was observed that E-beam stabilization of DUV photoresist could result in a comparable FED and CD control reported on thermal annealing.