IUVSTA 15th International Vacuum Congress (IVC-15), AVS 48th International Symposium (AVS-48), 11th International Conference on Solid Surfaces (ICSS-11)
    Manufacturing Science and Technology Monday Sessions
       Session MS-MoM

Paper MS-MoM7
Development of a 300 mm Wafer Defect Analysis Tool Integrating High Resolution Auger Spectroscopy and Ultrahigh Resolution Immersion Lens SEM Microscopy

Monday, October 29, 2001, 11:40 am, Room 131

Session: Metrology and Inspection for Manufacturing
Presenter: W.K. Ford, Intel Corporation
Authors: W.K. Ford, Intel Corporation
M. Jaehnig, Intel Corporation
P. Hudson, Intel Corporation
T. Dingle, FEI Company
K. Troost, FEI Company
L. Christman, FEI Company
J. Jackman, FEI Company
M. Verheijen, FEI Company
P. Belcher, Thermo VG Scientific
Correspondent: Click to Email
The challenge of defect analysis and material characterization in a Si semiconductor fab becomes increasingly difficult with each process generation. Scaling steadily decreases the size of circuit features, permitting smaller and smaller particle defects to impact the yield of the device. Simultaneously, nanometer-scale thin films are commonly being used as gate dielectrics, metal adhesion and barrier layers, and interfacial treatments. These two trends produce challenges to process development and manufacturing that can be addressed using surface analytical tools such as the Auger microscope. This paper describes the development of an advanced Auger microscope believed suitable for 0.13 µm, 0.10 µm, and 0.07 µm process generations. It is in this range that the large excitation volume of the electron beam even at the lowest practical primary beam energy renders as ambiguous the commonly used x-ray analysis (EDS) methods, and that ultra sensitive mass spectroscopy (TOFSIMS) fails to have suitable lateral spatial resolution. The Auger microscope described herein has been developed using an immersion mode objective lens for ultimate imaging capability, providing simple, rapid transition between ultra high resolution SEM imaging and Auger spectroscopy. It is based on a UHV 300 mm wafer-capable platform using industry standard interfaces and incorporates a new, highly effective stage technology, which provides for the required stage navigation accuracy and speed, versatile sample positioning including high angle tilting, and full integration with standard CAD software interfaces. A high sensitivity Auger detector is used that provides the high spectral energy resolution often required for chemical analysis. These capabilities will be demonstrated using a full range of examples derived from Si process development and manufacturing.