ARE TODAY'S TOOLS MEETING FA'S NEEDS?

摘要

Technologies are still moving to the nanometer scale, with the technology node already at 14 nm, new materials with high-k dielectric and metal gates, new transistor architecture with FinFETs, complex multicore architectures, and very high-density integration. All the design tools, including design for test, design for manufacturing, and design-in reliability, have been refined and merged to speed up time-to-market and improve yield and reliability, while the latest wafer fabs are already well equipped to manufacture up-todate and future very-large-scale integration (VLSI). Nevertheless, failure and technological analyses are still mandatory to solve unforeseen issues and to optimize the whole process. This creates incredible challenges for tool manufacturers to fulfill the needed optical resolution for backside analysis, to develop new nanoprobing tools for electrical characterization, and to target ultimate physical and chemical resolution (analytical transmission electron microscopy, atomic probe, etc.). Developing these tools is more and more expensive, while up-to-date wafer fab facilities and the design cost of ultimate VLSI allow fewer and fewer players and factories into the market. One of the results is the high cost of tools, and another result, more linked to device technology, is the need for more and more skilled specialists to manage the analysis and to interpret the analysis results. Fortunately, the mass-market economic impact is so high that integrated circuit (IC) manufacturers are continuing the effort to obtain the necessary tools and to pay the right price for them. Therefore, there is a kind of balance that smooths the trends of fewer customers and more expensive tools on one side versus motivated IC manufacturers on the other. In this ultimate technology field, today's tools are meeting our needs, and we can remain quite confident for the next several years, but not forever, regarding the technical, scientific, and cost challenges that tool manufacturers face in developing new tools. This problem has been clearly identified, and the first Circuit Analysis Tool program has been set up to help develop needed tools and techniques.