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Welcome on the website of the Metrology for future 3D-technologies — METRO4-3D project.

Duration: February 1, 2016 to January 31, 2019; Budget: 3.349.813,75 EUR

One driver of the semiconductor industry growth is the sustained realization of “Moore’s Law”, whereby the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles approximately every 2 years with an associated increase in circuit functionality, reduction in operational power, and, most important, a reduction in unit cost. These fast technological developments, including increased process and material complexity, as well as reduced tolerance levels for process excursions have increased the need for a more controlled manufacturing environment necessitating equivalent improvements and developments in metrology. The present evolution towards merging lab and Fab metrology implies that these developments are necessary for use both in the R&D phase as in the final production phase. 

With the strong size dependence of many material problems and phenomena, metrology needs to be performed more and more on devices with realistic dimensions and on wafer scale. 

In this project, we aim at assessing three metrology tools three separate metrology tools will be 

• a TOFSIMS system (ION-TOF) with built-in Scanning Probe stage and FIB column for true 3D-composition profiling in confined and structured devices of failure analysis; 
• a completely automated microHall and sheet resistance measurement tool (CAPRES) addressing similar structures but sampling their electrical properties and with additional capabilities for measurements on dedicated test structures (prior to full BEOL);
• and a GHz scanning acoustic microscope (PVA TePla) with a frequency range up to 2 GHz (PVA TePla) for probing various defects in the BEOL layers like cracks, delamination, defectivities (such as voids), through Si vias (TSV’s) and micro-bumps, as well as voids or cracks in stacked dies and wafers. The latter can be correlated to contamination (=composition) at specific areas which can be probed with the TOFSIMS/FIB concept. 

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 688225.