This Small Business Phase I project will provide an improved process-control instrument for increasing yields and identifying defective product in microelectronic device fabrication. The proposed instrument will monitor fabrication processes performed in multi-chamber environments that are rapidly becoming the standard in microelectronics fabrication. Multi-chamber platforms include a central wafer-handling housing connected at it facets to different fabrication tools (e.g., CVD and etching chambers); the housing and the connected tools are kept under vacuum. A single platform performs multiple process steps. Unfortunately, the same features that make the platforms advantageous also make it difficult to perform process control, For example, most conventional metrology tools cannot measure wafers within the platform. To meet the fabrication industry's demand for real-time process control instrument s, it is proposed to develop and test an all-optical, smallscale process-control instrument. This instrument will remotely determine: I) the thickness of opaque (e.g., metal) and transparent (e,g., oxide) films; II) adhesion vs. delamination of opaque and transparent films; iii) viscoelastic properties of films and substrates; iv) thermal diffusivity of films and substrates; and v) ion implant levels of silicon wafers and epitaxially grown films. The proposed instrument has applications in the microelectronics industry, particularly in the area of metrology and process control.
