Rapid, Accurate Strain Profiling for Semiconductor Manufacturing

摘要

FEI Company recently released its new TrueCrystal Strain Analysis package that can be installed on a Titan~(TM) or Tecnai~(TM) scanning/transmission electron microscope (S/TEM) system. The new, automated strain analysis package allows engineers to achieve highly accurate measurements in a fraction of the time of existing techniques. "Silicon strain engineering is an important process innovation in advanced semiconductor manufacturing; it allows for improved device performance and efficiency at advanced technology nodes. Currently, only TEM has proven capable of measuring these induced lattice strains at the required spatial resolution," said Joseph Race, Product Marketing Manager, Electronics Division at FEI. "TrueCrystal Strain Analysis is a complete analytical package for the determination of strain along any line in a crystalline sample, at the nanometer level." TrueCrystal leverages a combination of nano-beam diffraction (NBD) in the TEM, and a powerful off-line data analysis package, to quickly and easily generate the high-quality data required for advanced strained silicon process development.