It was necessary to form anti-water coating on the surface of photoresist toprevent the interaction between photoresist and water in ArF immersion lithography. Anti-water coating played an important role in resolution，process window，and defect of photoresist. And balancing the hydrophobic and alkaline solubility of anti-water coating wasthe key and difficult point in the designing of polymer structure. In this review，the methods and mechanisms of anti-water coating formation were analyzed，the advantages and disadvantages between different methods were compared. And the anti-water coating polymerswere categorized and summarized based on their functional groups and alkaline solubility. Thestructure and performance of anti-water coating polymers were focused，especially the effectsof steric and hydrogen bonding on hydrophobicity of coating were highlighted. Finally，the application and development prospects were briefly discussed.