Batteries: thermoelectric and photoelectric – Thermoelectric – Electric power generator
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-24
2002-09-03
Niebling, John F. (Department: 2812)
Batteries: thermoelectric and photoelectric
Thermoelectric
Electric power generator
C250S332000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06444895
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to devices and methods for performing nondestructive inspection on chips of semiconductor devices, and particularly to nondestructive inspection for detecting defects which are electrically active. This invention also relates to semiconductor devices, which are suited to the nondestructive inspection, and manufacturing methods of the semiconductor devices.
This application is based on Patent Application No. Hei 10-272788, Patent Application No. Hei 11-67744 and Patent Application No. Hei 11-133283 all filed in Japan, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, the nondestructive inspection techniques are disclosed by the known papers such as the paper entitled “OBIC Analysis Technique By Thermo Electro-motive Force”, which is provided as the material for 132 meeting on study of 132 committee of Japan Academy Promotion Foundation with regard to industrial application of charged particle beams. Herein, “OBIC” is an abbreviation for “Optical Beam Induced Conductivity”. The nondestructive inspection technique of this kind is used to nondestructively detect defect positions of wiring system in processes for defect analysis and fault analysis of semiconductor devices.
In addition, a variety of papers describe inspection of semiconductor devices and its related technologies using lasers. For example, the paper of Japanese Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 7-14898 discloses OBIC analysis for semiconductor device wafers.
The paper of Japanese Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 4-312942 discloses an OBIC current detection method for semiconductor devices.
The paper of Japanese Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 5-136240 discloses OBIC observation for silicon semiconductor devices.
The paper of Japanese Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 8-255818 discloses scanning-type OBIC current analysis using a scanning laser microscope.
The paper of Japanese Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 10-170612 discloses inspection of defects in internal mutual wiring of semiconductor integrated circuits.
The paper of Japanese Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 2-284439 discloses inspection of defects of semiconductor devices in manufacture of multilayer-wiring packages.
The paper of Japanese Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 4-369849 discloses a semiconductor integrated circuit device, which is constructed to allow accurate measurement of electric potentials of aluminum wires located under oxide films.
The paper of Japanese Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 5-47929 discloses automatic arrangement and wiring in layout designs of semiconductor integrated circuits.
The paper of Japanese Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 5-243535 discloses design of semiconductor integrated circuits whose wiring patterns can be corrected with ease.
The paper of Japanese Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 8-316281 discloses inspection of defects in patterns of multilayer wiring.
Now,
FIGS. 8 and 9
show examples of configurations for the conventional device and method of nondestructive inspection (hereinafter, simply referred to as nondestructive inspection device and nondestructive inspection method), wherein same parts are designated by same reference symbols. A laser
1
generates a laser beam, which is narrowed down by an optical system
2
to produce a laser beam
3
. Scanning is performed using the laser beam
3
on an observed area of a semiconductor device chip
4
. The scanning is performed by polarization of the laser beam by the optical system
2
under control of a control image processing system
106
.
In the above, an electric current is caused to occur and is extracted by a prober
115
-
1
, which is subjected to probing to a bonding pad
14
-
1
. The electric current is detected by a current variation detector
131
and is displayed on a screen of an image display device
7
under control of the control image processing system
106
. Herein, variations of electric currents are displayed as an image representing luminance variations with respect to scan positions. Such an image is called a scan current variation image.
Concretely speaking,
FIG. 8
shows an example of the configuration for the nondestructive inspection to let the current flow in a closed circuit. That is, a prober
115
-
2
is subjected to probing to a bonding pad
14
-
7
, which is different from the bonding pad
14
-
1
connected to the current variation detector
131
, and is grounded.
FIG. 9
shows an example of the configuration for the nondestructive inspection to let the current flow in an open circuit in a form of a transient current. So, all of bonding pads other than the bonding pad
14
-
1
connected to the current variation detector
131
are open. A capacitance (or capacity) component is required for the transient current to flow in the open circuit. In case of
FIG. 9
, such a capacitance component corresponds to a parasitic capacitance on the chip or a floating capacitance of a measurement system.
Next, operations of the nondestructive inspection will be described in detail. As described above, a difference between the configurations of
FIGS. 8 and 9
merely lies in formation of the closed circuit or open circuit. So, the operations will be described without distinguishing between those configurations. Under the control of the control image processing system
106
, the scanning is performed using the laser beam
3
, which is originally generated by the laser beam generator
1
and is narrowed down by the optical system
2
, on the observed area of the semiconductor device chip
4
. Herein, the scan current variation image is subjected to illuminance display in response to the scanning in such a way that a current flowing into the current variation detector
131
is displayed “bright” while its reverse current is displayed “dark”, for example. Incidentally, the display is made using the contrast between light and shade as well as gradation.
When a laser beam is irradiated on a position in proximity to a defect, thermoelectromotive force is instantaneously caused to occur so that a current flows in the aforementioned circuit. In contrast, when the laser beam is irradiated on a non-defective area, the thermoelectromotive force is not caused to occur so that the current does not flow in the circuit. Therefore, the image display device
7
displays an image (called a scan current variation image) in which the contrast between light and shade appears in connection with the position in proximity to the defect. At the same time when the scan current variation image is obtained, or just before or after the scan current variation image is obtained, a scan laser microphotograph is taken with respect to an optical reflected image, which emerges in connection with the laser beam scanning.
Then, the general-use image processing technique is used to perform composition on the scan current variation image and scan laser microphotograph to produce a composite image composed of two images. Using such a composite image, it is possible to clearly recognize a position corresponding to the contrast between light and shade in the scan current variation image, so it is possible to specify a defect position on the semiconductor device chip
4
. Incidentally, the aforementioned technique has an accuracy in detection of the defect position in an order of sub-microns.
In order to clearly detect a type of the defect and a cause of occurrence of the defect which is detected nondestructively as described above, physically destructive analysis is normally performed, using the focusing ion beam method or electron microscope method, on defect positions. In other words, the conventional technology is used to clearly recognize the defect positions with the accuracy in positional detection in an order of sub-microns, so it is possible to efficiently perform physical analysis on micro defects, sizes of which are u
Niebling John F.
Scully Scott Murphy & Presser
Stevenson André C
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