We present a technique to produce isolated lines and trenches with arbitrary widths in the range of 12 nm to 500 nm, arbitrary heights and depths in the range of 100 nm to 2 μm, 90-degree sidewall angle, and top corner radii as small as 5 nm. These structures are ideal candidates as Critical Dimension (CD) absolute standards. The sidewall angle can further be varied to create an arbitrary sidewall angle that can be accurately measured.
This paper is a practical guide to the calibration of magnification of a CD-SEM using a pitch standard. It answers two fundamental metrology questions: 1) how many individual pitch measurements should one take in order to estimate the average pitch of the sample with a specified uncertainty and with a specified confidence level?, and 2) when is it appropriate to recalibrate the instrument following the measurement of the standard? In answering these questions, this paper identifies Cost of Ownership (CoO) elements of the calibration process and outlines best engineering practices for the calibration procedure. The discussion is then extended to the case of tool matching and calibration of not just a single measurement tool, but an entire measurement system comprised of several measurement tools all matched to each other. Finally, this paper discusses the problem of hydrocarbon contamination in a CD-SEM, which limits the number of times that a certain location on the standard can be used for calibration, and presents a methodology to determine how often the measurement location should be changed.
In this paper we present and characterize a NIST-traceable, all-silicon, 100 nm pitch structure with the necessary quality attributes to calibrate CD-SEM tools used for metrology of sub-0.25 micron semiconductor process technology.
This paper addresses the problem of determining the absolute force constant of Atomic Force Microscope cantilevers. In the method presented, the cantilever under test is deflected against a reference cantilever of known spring constant. The relative deflection of the two cantilevers is related to their spring constants. The novelty of our approach is in the use of a micromachined reference cantilever of a precisely controlled force constant. Preliminary results show that our method is capable of measuring the force constant of cantilevers in the range of 0.1 to 10 N/m with an accuracy of better than 20%. The error is dominated by the non-linear effects in the force versus distance curves used for the measurement.
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