Driving accuracy in a complex semiconductor landscape

by Lars Grieger, Thursday, 13th October 2022

Semiconductor

In the fast-moving world of technology, trends come and go. Spare a thought for the video cassette, the compact disk, the car phone, and the Walkman – one-time “breakthroughs” that served society well before being replaced by sleeker, more sophisticated engineering.

There’s one technology trend that has stood the test of time, though, and that’s size. In 2022 (just like every other year), smaller means better. Among other advantages, reducing the size of devices, and their component parts, is usually a big tick in the box for sustainability.

But smaller invariably means more complex; more technological horsepower squeezed into ever-smaller devices and components. This is clearly the direction of travel in today’s semiconductor market, where there is growing pressure on manufacturers to deliver more compact – yet complicated – devices, as they work to meet the changing needs of the automotive, computing, and data storage sectors.

Smaller technologies, bigger demands

As semiconductor layers have steadily become thinner and more intricate, the resulting measurement techniques, such as X-ray metrology, have themselves grown more complex. Improving accuracy becomes paramount, and innovative solutions are needed to generate consistently reliable results.

This changing landscape presents clear challenges for researchers, as well as method developers, application specialists, and quality assurance and quality control managers. One of the biggest problems concerns instability in channels, with diffraction peaks leading to unwanted background signals that can obstruct clear and accurate analysis.

Another common headache involves comparing analytical results from different tools. When done by hand, such comparisons are prone to error and often deliver a spread in results that can further undermine analysis. It’s also worth mentioning that manually transferring applications and tool matching correction sets between tools is hard work, and diverts valuable time and resources from other analytical processes.

A two-pronged solution for superior analysis

At Malvern Panalytical, we know that size matters to our customers, but we also know that what really counts is accuracy. That’s why we’re launching MP Tools: a brand-new software package for our simultaneous wavelength dispersive X-ray spectrometer, the Wafer Analyzer 2830 ZT platform.

MP Tools is introduced with two major software developments, designed to help customers improve their analytical results. DifferAction enables users to locate diffraction peaks within specific substrates and layers automatically, to quickly determine whether or not their measurement channel is encountering diffraction interference. This way, they can adapt their wafer offset for measurements and reconfigure their installed channels to achieve the best analytical results.

Meanwhile, our ToolMatch solution is designed to obtain close-to-identical results from different tools to improve the overall accuracy of their analysis. Applications and ToolMatch correction sets are automatically imported and exported between tools, reducing time and effort, and minimizing the potential for errors.

Stay ahead of the curve with Malvern Panalytical

We believe MP Tools offers a step forward for semiconductor metrology X-ray equipment. One that will hopefully help semiconductor professionals to keep pace with growing industry demands around size, speed, and – most importantly – accuracy.

To talk about how MP Tools can help improve your analytical processes, contact us.

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