Differential C-AFM system for semiconductor failure analysis

Abstract

Conductive Atomic Force Microscope (C-AFM) has become an indispensable tool in semiconductor failure analysis. In this work, a Differential C-AFM system was developed, which is able to simultaneously isolate fault locations in p-dope, n-doped & polysilicon regions more efficiently within one scan. Furthermore, due to its AC nature, this technique can also be applied in C-AFM analysis on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) devices.