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Stress analyzer
The deposition of thin films on wafers often happen at temperatures exceeding 300 °C and stress can be induced when the wafer is cooled down to room temperature due to the mismatch of the thermal expansion coefficients between the film and the wafer. Intrinsic stress (tensile or compressive) also occurs during film deposition. The stress can cause the wafer to bow, or induce cracks, voids, delamination or other failures that can affect not only the film performance, but also the reliability of the devices. Accurate assessment of stress in the films is thus critical for developing controllable processes and producing high quality devices. Film stress can be determined by measuring changes in the radius of curvature of the wafer using a laser scanner before and after film deposition. The difference in curvature is used to calculate the stress using Stoney’s equation.
The FSM 500TC stress analyzer available in the Nanofabrication facility is capable of measuring film stress on various wafers sizes from 50 mm (2”) to 200 mm (8”). It is equipped with a heating element, and a temperature control system with programmable temperature ramping and cooling rate. This allows monitoring of the film stress from room temperature to 500 °C, which can provide a better understanding of the film stability, stress relaxation, effect of moisture and phase transitions.
