Abstract Shrinking gate lengths have led to increased challenges in isolating defects using conventional physical failure analysis methods. Conducting atomic force microscopy (CAFM) has been proven to be a powerful tool to isolate gate oxide defects in silicon-on-insulator devices. Some sample preparation techniques of exposing polysilicon and gate oxide, which were critical to perform CAFM scan, are discussed in this paper.

Abstract A number of backside analysis techniques rely on the successful use of optical beams in performing backside fault isolation. In this paper, the authors have investigated the influence of the 1340 nm and 1064 nm laser wavelength on advanced CMOS transistor performance.