SEMICON WEST 2008 San Francisco 15-17 July 2008
Semiconductor Diagnostics, Inc. will be exhibiting at the Semicon West Show, to be held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Please stop by and visit our booth, to learn more about recent technology developments and our latest products.
Booth #5337
North Hall
Moscone Exhibition Center,  San Francisco
Application of Non-contact Corona-Kelvin metrology for Characterization of Plasma Nitrided SiO2
A. Belyaev, D. Marinskiy, M. Wilson, J. D’Amico, L. Jastrzebski and J. Lagowski
Semiconductor Diagnostics Inc., 3650 Spectrum Blvd., Suite 130, Tampa, FL, 33612

In this paper we demonstrate an application of the micro corona-Kelvin metrology to monitoring of the electrical properties of silicon oxynitrides prepared with a plasma nitridation process currently used for advanced gate dielectrics. Key measurement parameters to be discussed in correlation with nitrogen concentration are: dielectric capacitance equivalent thickness (CET), dielectric voltage in valence band tunneling range (VB), interface trapped charge (Qit) and flatband voltage with an emphasis on correlation with nitrogen concentration. Positive and negative polarity tunneling conditions are used as a sensitive measure of dielectric conduction and valence band structure, respectively. Taking advantage of the large valence band offset difference between Si3N4 and SiO2, we employ tunneling measurements for very sensitive probing of the nitrogen content in SiON dielectrics.
Keywords: Corona-Kelvin, scribe lines, plasma nitridation.
Published at: 2007 International Conference on Frontiers of Characterization and Metrology for Nanoelectronics.
Non-contact Corona-Kelvin based Metrology for High-k Dielectric Characterization with 
an Extension to Micro-Scale Measurement
Marshall Wilson, Dmitriy Marinskiy, Carlos Almeida, Joseph N. Kochey, Anton Byelyayev, Alexandre Savtchouk, John D'Amico, Andrew Findlay, Lubek Jastrzebski, and Jacek Lagowski
Semiconductor Diagnostics Inc., 3650 Spectrum Boulevard, Suite 130, Tampa, FL, 33612

In-line monitoring of the electrical properties of high-k dielectrics in logic or memory fab-lines has become increasingly important in the semiconductor industry. Non-contact corona- Kelvin based metrology can be used to affectively monitor in-line key dielectric properties. Furthermore, we present an important extension of this metrology to the micro-scale that allows measurement of dielectric properties on test sites as small as 40μm x 70μm. This is achieved through miniaturization of the corona charging apparatus and of the Kelvin probe without a sacrifice in precision or repeatability. Corona-Kelvin micro-metrology allows for the monitoring of the critical dielectric properties directly on product wafers that can then be returned to the fabline for continued processing. Application examples are given for dielectric capacitance of advanced dielectrics and for the properties of an oxide-nitride-oxide (ONO) memory structure. In the latter case we demonstrate programming and erasing of the ONO structure realized by corona charging. We also use the measured flatband voltage and total charge to identify the location of the programmed charge at the first SiO2/Si3N4 interface in the ONO structure.
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