A new test structure for the electrical measurement of the width of short features with arbitrarily wide voltage taps

Author

Allen, Richard A. ; Cresswell, Michael W. ; Buck, Laurence M.

Author_Institution

Nat. Inst. of Stand & Technol., Gaithersburg, MD, USA

Volume

13

Issue

6

fYear

1992

fDate

6/1/1992 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

322

Lastpage

324

Abstract

Accurate determination of the linewidth of a narrow conducting film for VLSI applications using electrical test structure metrology has required that the length of the line be many times its width to minimize geometric error due to the finite width of the voltage taps. However, long lines obscure important local effects such as nonuniformities in the film. Shorter lines highlight such effects. This work describes a method of measuring the width of a short line having taps of arbitrary width. The effect of the taps is measured and used in the extraction of the linewidth allowing the determination of local linewidth variations with confidence.<>

Keywords

VLSI; integrated circuit testing; spatial variables measurement; VLSI applications; electrical measurement; electrical test structure metrology; linewidth extraction; short feature width; wide voltage taps; Bridge circuits; Conductive films; Electric variables measurement; Electrical resistance measurement; Guidelines; Length measurement; Resistors; Testing; Very large scale integration; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/55.145072

Filename

145072