Eric K. Lin, Wen-li Wu, Ronald L. Jones & Chengqing Wang, NIST, USA, Kwang-Woo Choi, George M. Thompson & Bryan J. Rice, Intel Corp., USA

ABSTRACT

While enormous effort has been expended in developing the optical lithography tools to print ever-finer features, significant advances have also been required to measure the shape and dimensions of the printed features. Currently, scanning electron microscopy and optical scatterometry methods are the primary metrology tools for gate stack, source-drain via, and interconnect metrology. Atomic force microscopy is used in special situations because of its ability to extract unambiguous three-dimensional information.