Surface and Thin Film Analysis of Microelectronics Materials

Authors

Harland G. Tompkins, Motorola, Inc.

Abstract

The use of probing techniques in the analysis of microelectronics materials is discussed in general and several examples are presented to illustrate the use of these techniques. The emphasis of this paper is for using electrons as the probing particles and both electrons and x-rays as the analyzed particles to deal with analysis of microelectronics materials. The first example involves the interaction of titanium and silicon dioxide. It is shown that when titanium is sputter deposited onto silicon dioxide, the titanium reduces a small amount of the oxide to elemental silicon at the interface. The second example shows how a thin oxide is converted to an oxynitride when silicon nitride is deposited on top of it. The last two examples involve failure analysis of microelectronics devices. We show that a simple ratio technique can be used to quickly estimate the thickness of a carbonaceous layer on aluminum bond pads.

Recommended Citation

Tompkins, Harland G. (1987) "Surface and Thin Film Analysis of Microelectronics Materials," Scanning Microscopy: Vol. 2: No. 1, Article 10.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/microscopy/vol2/iss1/10