Microsphere-assisted, nanospot, non-destructive metrology for semiconductor devices

Soonyang Kwon; Jangryul Park; Kwangrak Kim; Yunje Cho; Myungjun Lee

doi:10.1038/s41377-022-00720-z

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Microsphere-assisted, nanospot, non-destructive metrology for semiconductor devices

Articles

- Microsphere-assisted, nanospot, non-destructive metrology for semiconductor devices
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 11, Issue 2, Pages: 262-275(2022)
- Affiliations：
  
  Equipment R & D Team 4, Mechatronics Research, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., 1-1 Samsungjeonja-ro, Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do 18848, Republic of Korea
- Author bio：
  
  Myungjun Lee (myung01.lee@samsung.com)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-022-00720-z
  CLC：
- Published：28 February 2022，
  
  Published Online：07 February 2022，
  
  Received：13 April 2021，
  
  Revised：28 December 2021，
  
  Accepted：17 January 2022
- Accepted：
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Kwon, S. et al. Microsphere-assisted, nanospot, non-destructive metrology for semiconductor devices. Light: Science & Applications, 11, 262-275 (2022).
DOI：

Kwon, S. et al. Microsphere-assisted, nanospot, non-destructive metrology for semiconductor devices. Light: Science & Applications, 11, 262-275 (2022). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-022-00720-z.

摘要

Abstract

As smaller structures are being increasingly adopted in the semiconductor industry

the performance of memory and logic devices is being continuously improved with innovative 3D integration schemes as well as shrinking and stacking strategies. Owing to the increasing complexity of the design architectures

optical metrology techniques including spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) and reflectometry have been widely used for efficient process development and yield ramp-up due to the capability of 3D structure measurements. However

there has been an increasing demand for a significant reduction in the physical spot diameter used in the SE technique; the spot diameter should be at least 10 times smaller than the cell dimension (~30 × 40 μm

) of typical dynamic random-access memory to be able to measure in-cell critical dimension (CD) variations. To this end

this study demonstrates a novel spectrum measurement system that utilizes the microsphere-assisted super-resolution effect

achieving extremely small spot spectral metrology by reducing the spot diameter to ~210 nm

while maintaining a sufficiently high signal-to-noise ratio. In addition

a geometric model is introduced for the microsphere-based spectral metrology system that can calculate the virtual image plane magnification and depth of focus

providing the optimal distance between the objective lens

microsphere

and sample to achieve the best possible imaging quality. The proof of concept was fully verified through both simulations and experiments for various samples. Thus

owing to its ultra-small spot metrology capability

this technique has great potential

for solving the current metrology challenge of monitoring in-cell CD variations in advanced logic and memory devices.

关键词

Keywords

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