Role of transmission electron microscopy in the semiconductor industry for process development and failure analysis

TEM has been used for semiconductor device characterization since the 1980's, when Marcus and Cheng first demonstrated the feasibility and utility of applying TEM to semiconductors. The frequency of use of TEM has accelerated briskly due to the continual shrinkage of devices as predicted by Gordon Moore and now documented in the SIA roadmap (http://public.itrs.net/Home.htm). TEM use has also grown due to application of FIB techniques which make possible high precision cross-sections of specific structures. This relentless shrinking has resulted in difficulties in preparing suitable specimens. Many of the features and interfaces in a device may be curved rather than planar, and as the radius of curvature begins to approach the thickness of a TEM specimen, it can result in “geometrical blurring” of features, both for imaging and microanalysis. The origin of this blurring is illustrated in Figure 1, where it can be seen that a single electron may pass through two different features, and as a result, they are not resolved.

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On Future Directions in Pathology

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100053991 ◽

1982 ◽

Vol 40 ◽

pp. 274-277

Author(s):

Benjamin F. Trump ◽

Irene K. Berezesky ◽

Raymond T. Jones

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

Transmission Electron Microscopy ◽

Clinical Pathology ◽

Future Directions ◽

Diagnostic Pathology ◽

The Past ◽

Transmission Electron ◽

Organ Systems ◽

The Many

The role of electron microscopy and associated techniques is assured in diagnostic pathology. At the present time, most of the progress has been made on tissues examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and correlated with light microscopy (LM) and by cytochemistry using both plastic and paraffin-embedded materials. As mentioned elsewhere in this symposium, this has revolutionized many fields of pathology including diagnostic, anatomic and clinical pathology. It began with the kidney; however, it has now been extended to most other organ systems and to tumor diagnosis in general. The results of the past few years tend to indicate the future directions and needs of this expanding field. Now, in addition to routine EM, pathologists have access to the many newly developed methods and instruments mentioned below which should aid considerably not only in diagnostic pathology but in investigative pathology as well.

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Transmission Electron Microscopy studies of texture of Cr underlayer of magnetic recording hard disk

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100087215 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 49 ◽

pp. 580-581

Author(s):

L. Tang ◽

G. Thomas ◽

M. R. Khan ◽

S. L. Duan

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

Thin Films ◽

Transmission Electron Microscopy ◽

Magnetic Recording ◽

Magnetic Thin Films ◽

Magnetic Films ◽

Substrate Bias ◽

Epitaxial Relationship ◽

Transmission Electron

Cr thin films are often used as underlayers for Co alloy magnetic thin films, such as Co1, CoNi2, and CoNiCr3, for high density longitudinal magnetic recording. It is belived that the role of the Cr underlayer is to control the growth and texture of the Co alloy magnetic thin films, and, then, to increase the in plane coercivity of the films. Although many epitaxial relationship between the Cr underlayer and the magnetic films, such as ﹛1010﹜Co/ {110﹜Cr4, ﹛2110﹜Co/ ﹛001﹜Cr5, ﹛0002﹜Co/﹛110﹜Cr6, have been suggested and appear to be related to the Cr thickness, the texture of the Cr underlayer itself is still not understood very well. In this study, the texture of a 2000 Å thick Cr underlayer on Nip/Al substrate for thin films of (Co75Ni25)1-xTix dc-sputtered with - 200 V substrate bias is investigated by electron microscopy.

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Transmission Electron Microscopy of Evaporated Perylene Thin Films

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100135289 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 48 (2) ◽

pp. 336-337

Author(s):

C. Ewins ◽

J.R. Fryer

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

Thin Films ◽

Transmission Electron Microscopy ◽

Molecular Electronics ◽

High Vacuum ◽

Amorphous Layer ◽

Electric Heater ◽

Transmission Electron ◽

Polycyclic Aromatic

The preparation of thin films of organic molecules is currently receiving much attention because of the need to produce good quality thin films for molecular electronics. We have produced thin films of the polycyclic aromatic, perylene C10H12 by evaporation under high vacuum onto a potassium chloride (KCl) substrate. The role of substrate temperature in determining the morphology and crystallography of the films was then investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM).The substrate studied was the (001) face of a freshly cleaved crystal of KCl. The temperature of the KCl was controlled by an electric heater or a cold finger. The KCl was heated to 200°C under a vacuum of 10-6 torr and allowed to cool to the desired temperature. The perylene was then evaporated over a period of one minute from a molybdenum boat at a distance of 10cm from the KCl. The perylene thin film was then backed with an amorphous layer of carbon and floated onto copper microscope grids.

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Fine structure and possible functions of the hermaphrodite duct of some pulmonate snails (Mollusca: Gastropoda)

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100157887 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 48 (3) ◽

pp. 68-69

Author(s):

Alan N. Hodgson

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

Transmission Electron Microscopy ◽

Fine Structure ◽

Seminal Vesicle ◽

Reproductive Biology ◽

Light Microscope ◽

Light Microscope Level ◽

Transmission Electron ◽

Standard Techniques

The hermaphrodite duct of pulmonate snails connects the ovotestis to the fertilization pouch. The duct is typically divided into three zones; aproximal duct which leaves the ovotestis, the middle duct (seminal vesicle) and the distal ovotestis duct. The seminal vesicle forms the major portion of the duct and is thought to store sperm prior to copulation. In addition the duct may also play a role in sperm maturation and degredation. Although the structure of the seminal vesicle has been described for a number of snails at the light microscope level there appear to be only two descriptions of the ultrastructure of this tissue. Clearly if the role of the hermaphrodite duct in the reproductive biology of pulmonatesis to be understood, knowledge of its fine structure is required.Hermaphrodite ducts, both containing and lacking sperm, of species of the terrestrial pulmonate genera Sphincterochila, Levantina, and Helix and the marine pulmonate genus Siphonaria were prepared for transmission electron microscopy by standard techniques.

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Application of Tem on Sub-Half Micron Semiconductor Devices

MRS Proceedings ◽

10.1557/proc-523-45 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 523 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Hong Zhang

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

Transmission Electron Microscopy ◽

Failure Analysis ◽

Process Evaluation ◽

Semiconductor Devices ◽

Single Source ◽

Process Step ◽

Transmission Electron ◽

Single Process ◽

Single Process Step

AbstractApplication of transmission electron microscopy on sub-half micron devices has been illustrated in terms of process evaluation and failure analysis. For process evaluation, it is emphasized that a large number of features need to be examined in order to have reliable conclusions about the processes, while for failure analysis, the goal is to pin-point a single process step causing failure or a single source introducing the particle defect.

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Synthesis and Characterizations of Nanocubes, Monodispersed Nanocrystals and Nanospheres of Au

Key Engineering Materials ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/kem.353-358.2163 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 353-358 ◽

pp. 2163-2166

Author(s):

Ming Yang ◽

Guo Qing Zhou ◽

Jiang Guo Zhao ◽

Zhan Jun Li

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

Transmission Electron Microscopy ◽

Powder Diffraction ◽

Visible Absorption ◽

X Ray ◽

Transmission Electron ◽

Uv Visible ◽

Scherrer Formula ◽

Visible Absorption Spectroscopy

Nanocubes, monodispersed nanocrystals and nanospheres of Au have been prepared by a simple reaction between HAuCl4·4H2O, NaOH and NH2OH·HCl in the presence of gelatin. The role of gelatin and the affection of pH in producing the nanoparticles of Au were discussed. The products were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and UV-visible absorption spectroscopy. The sizes of the monodispersed nanocrystals of Au were estimated by Debye-Scherrer formula according to XRD spectrum.

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Transmission Electron Microscopy of Semiconductor Based Products

MRS Proceedings ◽

10.1557/proc-523-03 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 523 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

John Mardinly ◽

David W. Susnitzky

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

Transmission Electron Microscopy ◽

Ion Beam ◽

Semiconductor Industry ◽

Size Reduction ◽

Specimen Preparation ◽

Specimen Thickness ◽

Ion Milling ◽

Feature Size ◽

Transmission Electron

AbstractThe demand for increasingly higher performance semiconductor products has stimulated the semiconductor industry to respond by producing devices with increasingly complex circuitry, more transistors in less space, more layers of metal, dielectric and interconnects, more interfaces, and a manufacturing process with nearly 1,000 steps. As all device features are shrunk in the quest for higher performance, the role of Transmission Electron Microscopy as a characterization tool takes on a continually increasing importance over older, lower-resolution characterization tools, such as SEM. The Ångstrom scale imaging resolution and nanometer scale chemical analysis and diffraction resolution provided by modem TEM's are particularly well suited for solving materials problems encountered during research, development, production engineering, reliability testing, and failure analysis. A critical enabling technology for the application of TEM to semiconductor based products as the feature size shrinks below a quarter micron is advances in specimen preparation. The traditional 1,000Å thick specimen will be unsatisfactory in a growing number of applications. It can be shown using a simple geometrical model, that the thickness of TEM specimens must shrink as the square root of the feature size reduction. Moreover, the center-targeting of these specimens must improve so that the centertargeting error shrinks linearly with the feature size reduction. To meet these challenges, control of the specimen preparation process will require a new generation of polishing and ion milling tools that make use of high resolution imaging to control the ion milling process. In addition, as the TEM specimen thickness shrinks, the thickness of surface amorphization produced must also be reduced. Gallium focused ion beam systems can produce hundreds of Ångstroms of amorphised surface silicon, an amount which can consume an entire thin specimen. This limitation to FIB milling requires a method of removal of amorphised material that leaves no artifact in the remaining material.

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Ordering in Compound Semiconductors: The Role of Transmission Electron Microscopy

MRS Proceedings ◽

10.1557/proc-523-241 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 523 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

D. S. Su ◽

A. T. Tham ◽

P. Schubert-Bischoff ◽

I. Hähnert ◽

W. Neumann ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

Transmission Electron Microscopy ◽

Structure Model ◽

Zinc Blende ◽

Transmission Electron ◽

Semiconductor Compounds ◽

Ternary Semiconductor ◽

Ternary Semiconductor Compounds ◽

Long Range Ordering

AbstractIn this paper, the ordering of ternary semiconductor compounds is briefly reviewed by means of a coordination polyhedron model. Long-range ordering of chalcopyrite and CuAu-type structures can be represented as an array of repeating A2B2 tetrahedra. A CuAu-type ordered phase in a chalcopyrite AIBIIICVI2 compound is surrounded by an A3B+ AB3 boundary, whereas a CuPt-type ordered phase in a zinc-blende (A, B)IIICV compound is surrounded mainly by A2B2 type tetrahedra and thus restricted in size. Following the description of the ordered structure model, the detection of the asymmetry in ordering directions in (A, B)IIICV compounds is discussed. Some examples that employ transmission electron microscopy are presented.

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