1. Nondestructive electrical characterization of integrated interconnect line-to-line spacing for advanced semiconductor chips
- Author
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Kaushik Chanda, Paul S. McLaughlin, and Fen Chen
- Subjects
Interconnection ,Materials science ,Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous) ,Dielectric strength ,business.industry ,Analytical chemistry ,Capacitance ,Line (electrical engineering) ,Reliability (semiconductor) ,Semiconductor ,Nondestructive testing ,Optoelectronics ,Wafer ,business - Abstract
Poor process controls may cause huge line spacing variation across a semiconductor wafer during back-end-of-the-line integration in advanced semiconductor integrated circuit fabrication. As a consequence, significant degradation in yield, performance, and reliability may be observed. Line spacing variation also imposes challenges for accurate time dependent dielectric breakdown reliability lifetime projection. In this paper, a nondestructive, fast electrical method for determining a line-to-line spacing of a semiconductor chip is proposed. The method includes experimentally determining a slope from capacitance measurement (kCA), experimentally determining a slope from current-voltage measurement (kSE), and finally determining a line-to-line spacing from the slope kCA and the slope kSE. The line-to-line spacing determined from this method shows an excellent agreement with constructional analysis data.
- Published
- 2007
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