Novel Method to Characterize Post Laser Anneal Surface Condition for 45nm Process Technology Node

As IC technology advances result in progressively smaller device dimensions, understanding and characterizing the impact of process variations on wafer surface conditions and identifying potential surface damage becomes critical. UV laser scattering technology enables full-wafer surface monitoring with sub-nm vertical resolution and high throughput. This technique has been shown to be sensitive to small variations in laser spike annealing (LSA) process temperature which are not detectable by standard defect monitoring techniques, thus providing a powerful tool for process development and monitoring in a fab production environment.