The Application Of Atomic Force Probe In Semiconductor Failure Analysis

With the increased semiconductor technology, size reduction,integrated circuit failure analysis become difficulty more and more. The complexity and difficulty of semiconductor manufacturing increased day by day. Defect which affect chip function and reliability was smaller than before and hard been observed. Semiconductor failure analysis is locate the device failure location, determined the failure mode by electrical and physical method; It's analyse the physical and chemical process of failure,then found out failure mechanism of device, so as to formulate corrective and improvement actions; How to build the capabilities of fail analysis,quickly and accurately locate the fail location in scale integrated circuit was more and more urgent. Nano probe technology as an advanced one become more and more important. Nano probe technique is different with conventional one; the size of Nano probe tip is smaller than 65 nm and can probe more microscopic structure such as single transistor. when Nano probe technology applied, transistor level fail analysis is possible and the fail analysis technology into a new period.Atomic force probe as a new type of nano probe machine use the piezo control nano probe scanning the surface of sample and the size of nano probe less than 65 nm, Atomic force probe record the relative height of sample and map out the surface topography by laser reflection. Atomic force probe not only able to draw out the surface topography but also draw the pico current image by nano probe connect with sample. Atomic force probe with high precision, zero electrical damage become more and more popular, but there are some difficulties in application. In this paper, solved the difficulty in sample of atomic force probe marking exactly, sample preparation, eviation of measurement, improved the capability of atomic force probe in failure analysis.