SEM Vision Periodic Defect Review and Characterization after Inter-Metal Dielectric Deposition

摘要

Contamination control is a major issue in VLSI fabrication. Particle control, in particular, is crucial to the success of the manufacturing process. In this paper we describe the capability of using a Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) tool with integrated automatic material analysis, for fast defect source identification. The key aspect of the methodology presented is that SEM is applied in a high throughput mode and with a fully automated flow, from review to material identification, to eliminate all the problems related to manual operations.