Thin Film Stress

Measure thin film stress on semiconductor wafers:

Measuring Stress on Patterned or Monitor Wafers

The UltraGage family of products derives thin film stress from Stoney's Equation and the thousands of data points gathered using ADE's patented non-contact E Gage technology. Unlike optically-based systems, which also use this method to calculate thin film stress, the UltraGage is not sensitive to film type, reflectivity or other optical abberations that may result from subsurface multilayer stacks. Moreover, the large number of data points used in calculating stress means greater precision. This resolution is used to create highly detailed local stress maps that extend to within 3 mm of the wafers edge.

Advantages of UltraGage for Thin Film measurement:

• Not sensitive to film type
• Insensitive to reflectivity
• Measures wafers with multilayer stacks
• High data density yields precision
• Small wafer edge exclusion
• Obtains wafer shape measurement

In-Line/Off-Line Measurements

The UltraGage, depending on model, includes software to calculate global stress (single value) as an in-line measurement. For more detailed analysis of both local and global stress, the system also includes an off-line software package.

Measure film stress on wafers with these and other films:

 

• Nitride
• Polymer
• Copper
• Epitaxial
• Dielectric film
• Poly film
• Dark film
• Metal film
• CMP (and copper CMP)
• Photoresist films