Front End Defects on Deep Submicron Devices

Front end defects are usually more intricate as compared to back end defects, and as technology scale down into deep submicron regime, failure analysis of the front end defect is becoming even more challenging due to the increase in complexity of the process. In this paper, failure analysis on three types of front- end defect has been discussed. These defects are cobalt silicide at poly sidewall causing active to poly bridging, amorphous layer under contact and broken silicide on poly line, which were observed on 90 nm SOI wafers.