Fast Inspection of Non-Visual Defects in the Wafer Surface Using Two Low-Energy E-Beam Sources

Abstract

Although the electron-beam (e-beam) inspection can find the non-visual defects in the semiconductor devices under the fabrication procedure, it has a problem of low inspection speed. To resolve this problem, in this work, we have demonstrate the low-energy e-beam inspection using a tiny microcolumn as the e-beam source. The experimental result indicates that the non-visual defects in the wafer can be easily identified by measuring the e-beam current at the backside of the wafer. Since it is not difficult to make the multiple e-beam sources by packing many microcolumns, we can enhance the inspection many times by using the microcolumn e-beam sources.