Progress in electron-beam testing

To describe the progress of e-beam testing in recent years, four subaspects are examined: electron-optical improvements, waveform processing, capacitive voltage measurements, and the integration of e-beam testing with computer-aided design and testing. For the case of megabit DRAMs it can be shown that the interconnection width of the uppermost level metallization does not continue to decrease, since a two-layer metallization is used in the 17-b DRAM. In the future, therefore, greater efforts must be invested in designing for e-beam testability, whereas the electron-optical properties of existing dedicated e-beam testers appear to be well suited to meet the demands of the coming years.<>