Recently, stressed silicon wafers have begun being used and it is necessary to measure the strain in the surface film for
process control. We developed a stress measurement system with a built in film thickness measurement tool. In pursuing
this development we concentrated on the high-throughput and stable results required for semiconductor process control
tools. We achieved the desired results by using a collimator in the microscope.
Our system can measure the stress in 1 dimension line on a 300 mm wafer in less than 30 seconds. Then we proceed to
measure wafer patterns with the same system. We describe this system and the measurement data it provides.
As semiconductor technology has advanced, the films have become thinner and changed to multi-layer films, such as gate
dielectric construction.
To deal with these trends, we are continuing development of our spectroscopic ellipsometer with elliptical polarization.
We chose a Rotating-Analyzer Ellipsometer (RAE) configuration. The incident light in this type of device is usually
polarized linearly, because polarizers do not disperse the light. But the incident light in the ellipsometer described in this
paper is elliptical, which has a nearly circular polarization.
In this paper, we introduce a technique for solving the dispersion problem.
A shrinking design rule has decreased film thickness specifications and is creating challenges as multi-layer structures
and new materials are introduced. We have developed a spectroscopic ellipsometer, the RE-5200, which can measure
several parameters with spot sizes down to 30 um. The advantages of the RE-5200 include high long-term stability, high
accuracy, short measurement time, and low COO. The high precision aspheric mirrors were developed specifically for
this system and allow the measurement of very small areas on the device. In addition, the stress measurement function
meets some of the latest demands, which are high throughput, high accuracy and pattern independent. This paper
presents the optical design and performance of the RE-5200, including measurement results.
The dielectric function spectra of low dielectric constants (low-k) materials have been determined using spectroscopic ellipsometry, normal incidence spectroscopic reflectometry, and Fourier transform infrared transmission spectrometry over a wide spectral range from 0.03 to 5.4 eV (230nm to 40.5um wavelength region). The electric and ionic contributions to the overall static dielectric constants were determined for representative materials used in the semiconductor industry for interlayer dielectrics: (1) FLARE - organic spin-on polymer, (2) HOSP - spin-on hybrid organic-siloxane polymer from the Honeywell Electric Materials Company, and (3) SiLK- organic dielectric resin from the Dow Chemical Company. The main contributions to the static dielectric constant of the low-k materials studied were found to be the electric and ionic absorption.
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