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Three dimensional Not-And (3D NAND) flash memory devices are scaling in the vertical direction to more than 200 oxide/sacrificial wordline nitride layers to further increase storage capacity and enhance energy efficiency. The accurate measurement of the thicknesses of these layers is critical to controlling stress-induced wafer warping and pattern distortion. While traditional optical metrology in the UV-vis-NIR range offers a non-destructive inline solution for high volume manufacturing, we demonstrate in this paper, that mid-IR metrology has advantages in de-correlating oxide and nitride thicknesses owing to their unique absorption signatures. Furthermore, because of the depths sensitivity of oxide and nitride absorptions, the simulated measurement results show the ability to differentiate thickness variations in the vertical zones. Good blind test results were obtained with a machine learning model trained on pseudo-references and pseudo spectra with added skew. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The document is the table of contents for the August 2024 issue of the IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing. It includes a special section on the 2023 Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference, as well as regular issue papers on topics such as wafer-scale 3D integration, chemical uniformity impacts on electrodeposition, and thermal study of polymers for microelectronics. The document also includes letters and announcements, such as calls for papers and nominations for awards. [Extracted from the article]

As we enter a New Year, we can look back on another year of solid accomplishment at IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing. I am happy to report that our impact factor remains steady at 2.70, and our mean time to first decision remains competitive at 8.3 weeks. Our Editorial Board remains as strong as ever, with the addition of Dr. Jun-Haeng Lee in the area of machine learning and data science applications in 2023, and we are actively seeking new board members. Our submissions remain strong, as do the special sections from conferences (ASMC, ISSM and CS-MANTECH). The Special Issue on Production-Level Artificial Intelligence Applications in Semiconductor Manufacturing appeared in the November issue, and two additional special issues are in preparation. Prof. Duane Boning of MIT and Dr. Bill Nehrer of Technology Consultancy are co-editing a special issue on “Semiconductor Design for Manufacturing,” which will be a collaborative effort with the IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices. Drs. Oliver Patterson of Intel and Tomasz Brozek of PDF Solutions are also co-editing a special issue on sustainable semiconductor manufacturing. We are also happy to announce the Best paper Award for 2023, in the companion editorial appearing in this issue. Congratulations to all the honorees, and we hope we will continue to see their submissions in the future. Our thanks go to Drs. Jeanne Bickford, Dragan Djurdjanovic and Mahadeva Iyer Natarajan for their work on this committee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]