Semiconductor measurement labs struggle to measure Scattering (S-) parameters—how electrical signals travels through and reflect off—of integrated circuits, which impedes the adoption of new enabling technology.
This project will distribute, to industry, validated research grade on-wafer S-parameter calibration kits that include optimized integrated circuits on standard reference materials (SRMs) and will work with manufacturers to integrate NIST models into commercial calibration software.
Grand Challenge 3. Enabling Metrology for Integrating Components in Advanced Packaging
Electronics engineers use on-wafer calibration die to calibrate measurement equipment before characterizing or modeling semiconductor devices. While NIST pioneered on-wafer calibrations in the 1990’s, most industrial labs use commercial ‘Impedance Standard Substrates’ (ISS) that are manufactured by wafer probe manufacturers.
Because different integrated circuit manufacturers use different on-wafer calibration standards there can be large errors in on-wafer measurements.
Without referencing a traceable standard, measurements made with these commercial kits can have calibration errors that make it impossible to know the accuracy of results, so that statements regarding agreement or disagreement cannot be made. When used to model electrical component behavior (e.g., transistors, capacitors, etc.), uncharacterized errors in S-parameter measurements lead to unknown and uncharacterized component modeling errors, and uncertainty in validating that model. Similar problems arise when verifying the performance of a product.
This project will benefit the U.S. semiconductor industry by providing a common traceable on-wafer calibration standard to: