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This report presents explicit analytical expressions for the thermal expansion of a rod with heat input at one end and forced convection cooling along the length of the rod. When the rod is graduated for length measurement (i.e., a ruler or ball screw)
The non-vanishing size of tips in scanned probe microscopes (e.g., atomic force microscope or scanning tunneling microscope) results in imaging errors. Correction of these errors requires estimation of the tip shape (tip reconstruction) followed by
A proposal to develop the Industrial Applications of Scanned Probe Microscopy (IASPM) workshops, which NIST has co-sponsored with Sematech, the ASTM E42.14 subcommittee, and the American Vacuum Society, over the past four years into a forum for assisting
The scanning electron microscope (SEM) historically has been used mainly as an image-producing device and, in spite of certain obvious and sometimes serious electronics problems, serves in this function as an acceptable and effective instrument for many
This management report documents, as a case study, the development of a new industrial standard, SRM 2090, from the view point of the technologist. This report can be viewed as a generic template for the development of a state-of-the-art NIST standard. No
William T. Estler, Steven D. Phillips, Bruce R. Borchardt, Ted Hopp, G Witzgall, M Levenson, K Eberhardt, Marjorie A. McClain, Y Shen, X Zhang
We present the analysis of a simple mechanical model of a common type of kinematic seat touch trigger probe widely used on modern coordinate measuring machines (CMMs). The model provides a quantitative description of the pretravel variation or probe-lobing
Theodore V. Vorburger, Jun-Feng Song, T Giauque, Thomas Brian Renegar, Eric P. Whitenton, M Croarkin
A stylus-laser surface calibration system was developed to calibrate the NIST sinusoidal roughness Standard Reference Materials (SRM) 2071-2075. Step height standards are used to calibrate the stylus instrument in the vertical direction, and a laser
Precision interferometric displacement measurements require deadpath corrections to account for variations in wavelength during the course of the measurement. This paper discusses common errors in applying deadpath corrections and describes the correction
The National Institute of Standards and Technology is developing a dimensional pitch standard covering the range 1 micrometers to 10 mm, intended for the calibration of microscope magnification and of dimensional metrology instrument scales. Called SRM
This paper describes a method for stitching multiple overlapping interferometric measurements of the equator of a high quality sphere to produce a single profile representing the roundness of the ball. The resulting optical profile measurement is compared
The deposition of electron bean-induced specimen contamination in both the transmission (TEM) and scanning electron microscopes (SEM) has remained a problem since the beginning of these forms of microscopy. Generally, sources of SEM contamination can be
Standard Reference Material (SRM) 484 is an artifact for calibrating the magnification scale of a scanning electron microscope. Since 1977 the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has produced seven issues of SRM484 amounting to
Michael W. Cresswell, J Sniegowski, Rathindra Ghoshtagore, Robert Allen, L Linholm, John S. Villarrubia
Measurements of the linewidths of submicrometer features made by different metrology techniques have frequently been characterized by differences of up to 90 nm. The purpose of the work reported here is to address the special difficulties that this
Richard M. Silver, James E. Potzick, Fredric Scire, Robert D. Larrabee
The reduced critical dimensions of semiconductor devices place more stringent requirements on the precision and accuracy of overlay metrology tools used to monitor stepper feature placement. The use of mix and match stepper techniques and step and scan
Two Monte Carlo computer codes have been written to simulate the transmitted-, backscattered-, and secondary-electron signals from targets in a scanning electron microscope. The first discussed, MONSEL-II, is applied to semi-infinite lines produced
Photomask linewidth standards serve as primary standards for the calibration of photomask metrology tools and are available from the national standards organizations of several countries. These standards are often in the form of chrome-on-quartz photomasks
Ronald G. Dixson, N. Sullivan, J Schneir, T Mcwaid, V W. Tsai, J Prochazka, M. Young
Despite the widespread acceptance of SEM metrology in semiconductor manufacturing, there is no SEM CD standard currently available. Producing such a standard is challenging because SEM CD measurements are not only a function of the linewidth, but also
Nien F. Zhang, Michael T. Postek, Robert D. Larrabee, L Carroll, William J. Keery
Traditionally, the measurement of pitch in metrology instruments is thought to be a benign self-compensating function. However, as the measurement uncertainty of metrology instruments is pushed to the nanometer level, evaluation of the performance of the
Fully automated or semi-automated scanning electron microscopes (SEM) are now commonly used in semiconductor production and other forms of manufacturing. The industry requires that an automated instrument must be routinely capable of 5 nm resolution (or
Ronald G. Dixson, J Schneir, T Mcwaid, N. Sullivan, V W. Tsai, S Zaidi, S Brueck
As the critical dimensions of integrated circuit features decrease toward 0.18 um, feature width measurements with nanometer level accuracy will become increasingly important to the semiconductor processing industry. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) offers
A specific example of a technique we developed to enhance the information obtained from SEM images is the extraction of an approximate profile corresponding to an electron beam with zero beam diameter from one with a finite beam diameter. Results were