By Victor Vartanian, Dina Triyoso, Kurt Junker, Mark Raymond, Michael Canonico, Greg Spencer, Marc Rossow, Stefan Zollner, Darrell Roan, James Smith and Chris Happ, Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., Texas, USA

ABSTRACT

The introduction of new materials associated with strained Si substrates such as SiGe, Ge, and III-V materials for enhanced carrier mobility has imposed new metrology challenges and techniques.  Both well-established techniques and others of more recent emergence are being used to address these challenges.  X-ray metrology has attained a prominent status in future thin film metrology applications.  Although the application of strained Si to conventional MOSFET devices is compatible with existing mainstream CMOS process technology, there are wafer quality monitoring demands and stringent requirements for film morphology and strain uniformity, imposing new demands in material characterization...(more)