Application of DB-FIB in Defect Location for Failure Analysis

Abstract

Dual-beam Focused Ion Beam (DB-FIB) has become an important tool in semiconductor industry, especially in failure analysis (FA). However, the conventional FIB profiling method is often difficult to locate the specific location of nanoscale defects, and the failure point is likely to disappear due to the destructive physical analysis. In this work for the localization of nanoscale defects, we use the real-time observation by SEM when FIB is processing, which can comprehensively observe the changes of profile. When abnormal profile state is found, the processing of FIB could be stop immediately to ensure that the complete morphology of defects is retained and would not be destroyed by FIB processing, so as to realize the precise location of nanoscale defects.