High Volume and Fast Turnaround Automated Inline TEM Sample Preparation for Manufacturing Process Monitoring

This paper introduces a high volume and fast turnaround TEM sample preparation method and requirements for a 300 mm inline DualBeam (FIB/SEM) system with “hands-off” full automation. It requires a factory automation system, robust automated recipes, and an ex-situ TEM lamella liftout system. It describes the recipe structure and TEM lamella lift out procedures. The focus is on fully automated TEM sample preparation for process monitoring in manufacturing line. Two successful examples are described to demonstrate the benefit of this method. The first one is TEM sample for CA profile at M1 level. The second is TEM sample for poly crystalline (PC) line profile at post-etch.