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Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is one of the most important characterization techniques in semiconductor failure analysis. However, preparation of a good TEM lamella for analysis has great challenges and requires a well-thought-out sequence of steps. The normal TEM sample preparation procedures, though time consuming, can fulfill majority of the sample requirements, but sometimes there are...
The application of techniques utilizing transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) to identify the interface and defect property in GaN based materials is presented. Several parameters including STEM camera length and probe size were demonstrated to have significantly influence on image contrast and layer thickness,...
This paper reports three new delayer methods for TEM sample preparation with the benefit to locate the region of interest rapidly and efficiently. The experimental results showed that these methods can help to minimize the cycle time, decrease the cost and improve the sample quality.
Failure Analysis (FA) consists of fault verification, isolation, defect tracing, characterization and physical (elemental) analysis. It helps wafer fab to understand the root causes of low yield cases, drive the yield improvement activities. Due to the complexity of modern Integrated Circuits (ICs), defects causing the failure need more effort, a variety of FA tools to be identified. In this case,...
Being an advanced application of SEM based Nanoprobing tool, Electron Beam Current (EBC) is commonly applied for detecting test-key failure or LBIST scan failure. In this paper, EBC is employed with TIVA (Thermal Induced Voltage Alteration) to diagnose the chip level Pin high resistance failure related issue.
Recently, FInFET is introduced to deliver products with higher speeds and power efficiencies. Due to its 3D structure, FinFET results in complexity during the failure analysis process. Conventionally, the failure analysis (FA) starts with electrical failure analysis (EFA) to isolate the fault and follows by the physical failure analysis (PFA) to find the root cause. However, for the advanced technology,...
This paper describes the case study of test method of gate source failure and the fault localization approach with aid of device physics theory. The nominal behaviour of IGBT device is turn on the moment gate voltage reaches the threshold voltage. However, in this case the device turn on before the gate voltage reaches to the ideal threshold voltage due to distracted by Gate-source capacitance. On...
Defect localization of short failures has been a big challenge in modern advanced nanoscale devices. In recent years, Electron Beam Induced Resistance Change (EBIRCh) technique has been applied to failure analysis. The EBIRCh technique incorporated into SEM based nanoprobing system allows not only direct electrical characterization of suspicious bridge sites but also direct pinpointing of short defects...
Electron beam absorbed current (EBAC) has been used to isolate defects in BEOL metal stacks. With the increasing layout complexity, metal signal lines often run over 100um area and over multiple metal stacks. This makes SEM inspections during polishing tedious, time consuming and easy to overlook the defect. With the EBAC technique, it often shows the entire routing of the signal line with additional...
Although nano-particles have attracted extensive studies in material science and technology for decades, how to measure the particle size efficiently and conveniently still remains to be a problem unsolved. In this paper, Si nano-particles prepared by annealing a very thin amorphous Si layer were inspected by atomic force microscopy (AFM) as well as SEM and TEM e-beam techniques. Results extracted...
In this paper, we report a novel method of multi-location cross-section sample preparation for TEM failure analysis from the same planar view TEM sample, which is a large soft fail area. With the development of semiconductor technology, the sizes of devices are smaller and smaller, and the complexity of their structures is increasing. Though a test may show that a large area including multiple devices...
We characterized plate-like Ni-Sn IMCs in the Sn-2.3wt.%Ag solder bump using high-resolution 3D X-ray microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Two types of plate-like IMCs (type 1 and 2) were observed in the solder bump. The type 1 is composed of NiSn4, Ni3Sn4 IMCs and Ni. Type 2 is only composed of plate-like NiSn3 IMC. The crystal structures of meta-stable NiSn4 and NiSna IMCs are orthorhombic...
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