The article discusses the development of advanced scatterometry techniques for measuring and inspecting the smallest features on integrated circuit (IC) chips. Scatterometry is an optical method that provides quantitative information about average feature sizes across millions of devices using modeling and inverse regression.
Current challenges include characterizing sub-10 nm wide semiconductor patterns and measuring new materials and strain-engineered 3-D device geometries. The industry needs innovations in scatterometry to operate in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) spectral region (10-150 nm) for future semiconductor devices.
The project aims to achieve a 1000-fold increase in information gathered through fast optical techniques by combining ten times greater spatial resolution in each dimension and the ability to penetrate materials using shorter wavelengths. These advancements will benefit the CHIPS for America Metrology Program and contribute to more precise and efficient metrology techniques for the microelectronics industry.
Source: https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/euv-scatterometry
Keywords: semiconductor, metrology, spectrometer
