The Fundamentals of Nanoprobe Analysis

This article addresses the ancillary issues regarding the nanoprobing and characterization of transistors, probing copper metallization layers, and the various imaging techniques. The discussion includes several characterization examples of known transistor failure types, namely four probe transistor characterization, two probe transistor characterization, and probing and characterizing metallization issues. The imaging techniques discussed are those that are specific to atomic force nanoprober or scanning electron microscope based tools. They are current contrast imaging, scanning capacitance imaging, e-beam absorbed current imaging, e-beam induced current imaging, e-beam induced resistance change imaging, and active voltage contrast imaging.