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Appl. Phys. Lett. 102, 222107 (2013).
Ravikiran Attota, Benjamin Bunday, Victor Vartanian.
Semiconductor and Dimensional Metrology Division, NIST, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA and
SEMATECH Advanced Metrology Division, Albany, New York 12203, USA.
Abstract
We present results using simulations and experiments to demonstrate metrological applications of the through-focus scanning optical microscopy (TSOM) down to features at and well below the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors’ 22 nm node. The TSOM method shows the ability to detect sub-nanometer, three-dimensional shape variations such as line height, sidewall angle, width, and pitch in fins of fin-shaped field effect transistorstructures using conventional optical microscopes. In addition, the method requires targets substantially smaller than the conventional target size. These results provide insight into the applicability of TSOM for economical critical dimension and yield enhancement metrology.
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