Failure analysis on MIMCAP failures of 10nm devices using phase angle measurement method

Abstract

Failure analysis in scale down devices becoming very much intricate by following Moore’s law concept for current technology trend. Thus, this indirectly bring a very challenging task for failure analyst (FA) to identify the real defect in complex integrated circuit effectively (IC). Metal insulator- metal (MIM) capacitor has become popular choice for designers to select in the different signal devices as it is well known to stabilize a voltage reduction that ultimately leads to drastically improved product and transistor performance [1]. In this paper, we did come out an excellent technique to isolate MIMCAP defects effectively by characterizing comprehensive phase angle measurement that can be performed by using Enhance Lock in Thermal Emission (ELITE) machine. Through the established fault isolation (FI) methods carried out, we can isolate the defect accuracy and physical failure analyst (PFA) is able to reveal the real defects in shorten time and achieve higher success rate in findings. This is mainly because MIMCAP is a very thin parasitic layer about 50X thinner than next metal layer that sandwiched in between top metal layer 1 and top metal layer 0 which PFA might missed out during inspection by following conventional PFA approached to find out the defects.