ABSTRACT
Optical and electrical nanoprobing techniques have become critical means of finding defects in advanced silicon process technologies. This chapter treats both methods-optical methods involving light transmitted through the silicon wafer and electrical techniques which involve direct contact of nanoscale probes to conducting contacts or interconnects. For optical probing, the relevant optical properties of silicon and silicon-based transistors are shown to enable a variety of methods to gain information about circuit operation in VLSI devices. The best-known techniques of optical diagnosis, including static emission microscopy, time-resolved emission, the photon probing techniques, and laser voltage probe, are all described. We also review methods of improving optical resolution to scale to levels
useful for the 14 nm process technology. In electrical nanoprobing, the two basic systems of viewing and manipulating the nanoscale tips are described-SEM-based or atomic force microscope-based systems. A number of case studies are shown for in-depth transistor characterization and interconnect probing both from the front-side and back-side of the chip. Future directions and outlook for all the methods are also detailed.
