摘要:
The present invention provides a non-contact method for determining whether a contaminant is present in a semiconductor wafer having a substrate/dielectric interface formed thereon. in one advantageous embodiment, the method comprises field inducing a junction in equilibrium inversion in the semiconductor wafer device. A conventional corona source may be used to induce the junction to equilibrium inversion. This particular embodiment further includes forming a contaminant junction near the substrate/dielectric interface when the contaminant is present in the semiconductor wafer by adding charge and pulsing the junction out of equilibrium. A surface voltage measurement, which may be taken with a Kelvin probe, is obtained by measuring a change in a surface voltage as a function of time. The method further includes determining whether the contaminant is present in the semiconductor wafer from the change in the surface voltage. When the contaminant is present in the device, the change in the surface voltage is negligible. This negligible change is in stark contrast to the change in surface voltage that occurs in a non-contaminated device. The data obtained from these surface voltages can be plotted with conventional devices to yield the change in surface voltage with respect to time.
摘要:
A transistor gate dielectric structure includes an oxide layer formed on a substrate, a superjacent nitride layer and a transition layer interposed therebetween. The presence of the transition layer alleviates stress between the nitride and oxide layers and minimizes any charge trapping sites between the nitride and oxide layers. The transition layer includes both nitrogen and oxygen as components. The method for forming the structure includes forming the transition layer using a remote nitridation reactor at a sufficiently low temperature such that virtually no nitrogen reaches the interface formed between the oxide layer and the substrate. The oxide layer/substrate interface is relatively pristine and defect-free. In an exemplary embodiment, the oxide layer may be a graded structure formed using two distinct processing operations, a first operation at a relatively low temperature and a final operation at a temperature above the viscoelastic temperature of the oxide film.
摘要:
The present invention provides a method of determining a trap density of a semiconductor substrate/dielectric interface. In one embodiment, the method comprises measuring a current within a semiconductor substrate resulting from a flow of carriers from traps located near the interface, wherein the measured current is a function of the number of traps located at the interface, and determining the trap density as a function of the measured current.
摘要:
A method and apparatus for in-line, non-contact depletion capacitance measurement of a semiconductor wafer using non-contact voltage measurement and non-contact surface photovoltage response.
摘要:
The present invention provides a method for controlling a process parameter for fabricating a semiconductor wafer. In one embodiment, the method includes forming a test substrate using a given process parameter, determining a flatband voltage of the test substrate, and modifying the given process parameter to cause the flatband voltage to approach zero. The process parameter that is modified to cause the flatband voltage to approach zero may vary. The flatband may be determined by a non-contact method, which uses a kelvin probe to measure the flatband voltage and a corona source to deposit a charge on the test substrate.
摘要:
A non-contact method for determining a quality of a semiconductor dielectric. The method includes depositing a charge on a dielectric to achieve a high voltage on the dielectric, measuring a voltage drop of the dielectric as a function of time, and determining a soft breakdown voltage of the dielectric from the voltage drop as a function of time. The amount of charge that is deposited may vary. For example, the charge may be deposited until a voltage that ranges from about 4 megavolts to about 16 megavolts is achieved on the dielectric. The amount of charge may also depend on the thickness of the dielectric. For example, applying a charge as a function of the thickness may include applying 4 megavolts when the thickness is about 1.2 nm or applying 16 megavolts when the thickness is about 5.0 nm.
摘要:
The present invention provides a method for controlling a process parameter for fabricating a semiconductor wafer. In one embodiment, the method includes forming a test substrate using a given process parameter, determining a flatband voltage of the test substrate, and modifying the given process parameter to cause the flatband voltage to approach zero. The process parameter that is modified to cause the flatband voltage to approach zero may vary. The flatband may be determined by a non-contact method, which uses a kelvin probe to measure the flatband voltage and a corona source to deposit a charge on the test substrate.
摘要:
Methods for producing in-situ grooves in CMP pads are provided. In general, the methods for producing in-situ grooves comprise the steps of patterning a silicone lining, placing the silicone lining in, or on, a mold, adding CMP pad material to the silicone lining, and allowing the CMP pad to solidify. CMP pads comprising novel groove designs are also described. For example, described here are CMP pads comprising concentric circular grooves and axially curved grooves, reverse logarithmic grooves, overlapping circular grooves, lassajous groves, double spiral grooves, and multiply overlapping axially curved grooves. The CMP pads may be made from polyurethane, and the grooves produced therein may be made by a method from the group consisting of silicone lining, laser writing, water jet cutting, 3-D printing, thermoforming, vacuum forming, micro-contact printing, hot stamping, and mixtures thereof.
摘要:
A multi-piece food product (10) comprising a plurality of strands (12A-12K) that are extruded and aggregated to form an aesthetically pleasing food product is provided. A formulation used to make each of the strands (12A-12K) includes a mixture comprising at least 20% sweetener, at least 15% starchy material, and at least 1% fruit by weight based a total dry weight of the mixture to yield a starch-based confectionary food product. One process for forming the multi-piece food product (10) includes extruding a food stream from a slurry, dividing the food stream into three separate food streams (24A, 24B), injecting color, flavor, and ascorbic acid into the food streams (24A, 24B), conveying the food streams (24A, 24B) into a former (26) and extruding the strands (12A-12K) therefrom, forming the strands (12A, 12B) into an aggregate food mass (31), cooling the food mass (31), and cutting the food mass (31) into individual portions.
摘要:
The present application relates to polishing pads for chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) of substrates, and methods of fabrication and use thereof. The pads described in this invention are customized to polishing specifications where specifications include (but not limited to) to the material being polished, chip design and architecture, chip density and pattern density, equipment platform and type of slurry used. These pads can be designed with a specialized polymeric nano-structure with a long or short range order which allows for molecular level tuning achieving superior thermo-mechanical characteristics. More particularly, the pads can be designed and fabricated so that there is both uniform and nonuniform spatial distribution of chemical and physical properties within the pads. In addition, these pads can be designed to tune the coefficient of friction by surface engineering, through the addition of solid lubricants, and creating low shear integral pads having multiple layers of polymeric material which form an interface parallel to the polishing surface. The pads can also have controlled porosity, embedded abrasive, novel grooves on the polishing surface, for slurry transport, which are produced in situ, and a transparent region for endpoint detection.