Abstract This paper presents two case studies, based on 32nm Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) and 28nm bulk Si technology, on finding the root cause of nanometer scale short failures using Passive Voltage Contrast (PVC), Active Voltage Contrast (AVC) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). PVC/AVC is used as precision localization technique that is critical for a successful FA-TEM analysis. Combining planar TEM sample preparation and high sensitivity Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) mapping, a small residual filament, which is not visible even at high resolution TEM, is found to short two metal lines. The effective usage of voltage contrast and TEM provides the need of high throughput, high precision, and high resolution in the advanced FA lab that serves leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing.

Abstract One of the approaches to visualize dopant regions is to use SEM dopant contrast. In silicon, the technique is rather more problematical, presumedly because typical pn-junction built-in potentials are three times smaller. Dapor et al. have reviewed the literature, and made Monte Carlo simulations of dopant contrast. This paper shows that a surface insulator can be used to improve the dopant contrast between p- and n-regions obtainable on SEMs equipped with in-lens SE detectors. Based on the experimental results, it is clear that an organic material can enhance the dopant contrast effect by around 10%, provided that it is exposed to the electron beam. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the dopant contrast enhancement is due to charging of the insulator. Dopant contrast is also influenced by imaging position and scanning time. The method is easy, repeatable, and obtains clear results quickly, solving analysis cases which are quite intractable.