Failure Analysis of damaged dielectric on resistor and capacitor with EMMI and IR-OBIRCH

With scaling down of semiconductor devices, gate oxide degradation has been a reliability problem. So, emission microscope was developed to be applied in damaged gate oxide analysis in recent 20 years. We usually occurred some fail capacitor and resistor cases in FA (Failure Analysis). But in FA field no any paper summarized analysis of damaged capacitor and resistor with EMMI (Emission Microscope) and IR-OBIRCH (Infrared Optical Beam Induced Resistor Change) so far. So, it was very necessary to study EMMI & IR-OBIRCH characteristic of damaged dielectric on capacitor or resistor. In this paper, according our analysis experience and study structure of device there was similar insulation structure for gate oxide in MOS and dielectric in capacitor & resistor. Emission mechanism of damaged dielectric on capacitor and resistor was described, meanwhile we pointed out CCD could detect luminescence emitted by damaged dielectric layer. Three real cases were shared with abnormal emission spot on capacitor or resistor and in two of them we captured abnormal hotspot at abnormal emission spot location with IR-OBIRCH successfully. Finally we concluded one rule: once emission spot or hotspot was captured on capacitor or resistor with EMMI or IR-OBIRCH analysis, there must be damaged dielectric on this capacitor or resistor.