Electron beam probing of active advanced FinFET circuit with fin level resolution
Electron beam probing of active advanced FinFET circuit with fin level resolution
Thursday, November 1, 2018: 9:15 AM
225AB (Phoenix Convention Center)
Summary:
Electron beam probing was widely used in semiconductor industry till late 90s in chip debug and fault isolation. However, the old electron beam probers rely on voltage contrast signal on the metal interconnect lines on top of the chip. Due to the application of flip chip technology the metal signal lines are no longer accessible and the electron beam prober were replaced by optical probers in Infrared and lately in visible light range using the transmission of light through the silicon on backside of the chips. The resolution of the optical probers were limited to 200-150nm range due to the long wavelength of the light. Efforts were made in applying electron beam probing on the backside of the transistors. Voltage contrast was observed on planar devices. This paper will show for the first time chip level electron beam probing on fully functional 10nm and 14nm node FinFET chips with sub-fin level resolution and multiple functions developed on in house production tools.
Electron beam probing was widely used in semiconductor industry till late 90s in chip debug and fault isolation. However, the old electron beam probers rely on voltage contrast signal on the metal interconnect lines on top of the chip. Due to the application of flip chip technology the metal signal lines are no longer accessible and the electron beam prober were replaced by optical probers in Infrared and lately in visible light range using the transmission of light through the silicon on backside of the chips. The resolution of the optical probers were limited to 200-150nm range due to the long wavelength of the light. Efforts were made in applying electron beam probing on the backside of the transistors. Voltage contrast was observed on planar devices. This paper will show for the first time chip level electron beam probing on fully functional 10nm and 14nm node FinFET chips with sub-fin level resolution and multiple functions developed on in house production tools.