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EUV-based imaging steps into the limelight
Five Dutch universities and six companies joined hands to peer into the nanometer realm without the need for expensive optics.
Manufacturing leading-edge chips is a fine line to walk. Even the smallest deviations from the intended outcome can result in catastrophic defects, ruining ICs or even entire wafers. Chip manufacturers therefore employ a range of metrology tools to get as tight a grip as possible on process control throughout various stages of semiconductor fabrication. As feature sizes of ICs continue to shrink, new metrology methods may be needed to keep up.
Photon-based techniques such as scatterometry and interferometry traditionally make up the backbone of the semiconductor metrology toolset. In the past years, electron-based imaging has been added and recently, atomic force microscopy (AFM) seems to be making inroads. Each of these techniques offers unique advantages in detecting specific types of defects, often in a very complementary way to one another.