Reference Material 8091: New Scanning Electron Microscope Sharpness Standard

Published

August 1, 2001

Author(s)

Andras Vladar, Michael T. Postek, Nien F. Zhang, Robert D. Larrabee, Samuel N. Jones, Russell E. Hajdaj

Abstract

All scanning electron microscope-based inspection instruments, whether they are in a laboratory or on the production line, slowly lose their performance and then the instrument is no longer capable of providing as good quality, sharp images as before. This loss of performance is related to changes in the electron source, in the alignment of the electron-optical column, astigmatism , and to sample and electron optical column contamination. Detecting a loss in image sharpness easily reveals this decrease of performance. Reference Material (RM) 8091 is intended primarily for routinely checking the performance of scanning electron microscopes. RM 8091 is designed for use in conjunction with Fourier analysis software like the NIST/SPECTER SEM Monitor Program, the NIST Kurtosis program, or the University of Tennessee SMART program. This RM is supplied as a small, approximately 2 mm ? 2 mm diced semiconductor chip. It is meant to be mounted on to a so-called drop-in wafer for specialized, wafer inspection or dimensional metrology SEMs or put on a specimen stub for insertion into laboratory scanning electron microscopes. This Reference Material is fully compatible with state-of-the-art integrated circuit technology.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of SPIE, Metrology, Inspection, and Process Control for Microlithography XV, Neal T. Sullivan, Editor

Volume

4344

Conference Dates

February 26, 2001

Conference Location

Santa Clara, CA

Conference Title

Poster Session

Pub Type

Conferences

Keywords

CD, CD-SEM, measurement, metrology, performance, reference material, scanning electron microscope, SEM, standard

Citation

Vladar, A. , Postek, M. , Zhang, N. , Larrabee, R. , Jones, S. and Hajdaj, R. (2001), Reference Material 8091: New Scanning Electron Microscope Sharpness Standard, Proceedings of SPIE, Metrology, Inspection, and Process Control for Microlithography XV, Neal T. Sullivan, Editor, Santa Clara, CA (Accessed April 19, 2024)