Capacitors are important components of integrated circuits. The dielectric layer of a capacitor can crack leading to a short between the plates.
Localizing shorts can be tricky, as there is little resistance contrast between a defect and the surrounding structures.
Most failure analysis methods fail to localize low ohmic resistance defects between two parallel plates with sufficient spatial resolution. For example, OBIRCh could potentially find a failure spot with a few microns’ precision, but it is not good enough for preparing a lamella for a subsequent investigation.
In this application note, we show how to highlight shorts within the oxide of Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) capacitors using nanoprobing combined with Resistive Contrast Imaging (RCI).
We perform RCI on Imina Technologies’ EFA setup equipped with point electronic’s pre-amplifiers.
Enhanced contrast yields unparalleled localization precision of 500 nm for such fails, which is sufficiant to prepare a lamella for further investigation with TEM.
EBIC measurement of the minority carriers’ diffusion length in a GaAs solar cell p-n junction
Advanced EFA with color coded multi-channel nanoprobing
Femtofarad capacitance-voltage measurement at transistor contact level
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