International Business Machines Corporation

Aaron D Shore

Michael Ray Sievers

Steven B Herschbein

Herschel M Marchman

A method and apparatus for editing an integrated circuit by bombarding a feature in need of editing with either a low-energy or high-energy electron beam in the presence of a gas whereby low energy electrons activate reactants adsorbed on the surface of the feature in need of editing to form active species on the feature surface. The reaction products from the process can be easily removed whereby IC damage, leakage between metal features, wafer contamination and physical sputtering of undesired material can be significantly minimized while still possessing nanometer-scale spatial resolution. The low energy electrons for activating the reactants adsorbed on the surface of the feature to be edited may be emitted from the electron beam itself or they may be secondary low energy is electrons emitted from the surface of the feature being edited.

Apparatus and techniques for scanning electron beam based chip repair

A process for milling copper metal from a substrate having an exposed copper surface includes absorbing a halogen gas onto the exposed copper surface to generate reaction products of copper and the halogen gas; removing unreacted halogen gas from the surface; and directing a focused ion beam onto the surface to selectively remove a portion of the surface comprising the reaction products.

Growing community of inventors

Poughkeepsie, NY, United States of America

Aaron D Shore