International Business Machines Corporation

Fei Comapny

George Y Gu

Neil J Bassom

Kun Liu

Steven B Herschbein

Thomas J Gannon

Oleg Gluschenkov

Xu Ouyang

Carmelo F Scrudato

Ronald C Geiger, Jr

Loren L Hahn

A charge transfer mechanism is used to locally deposit or remove material for a small structure. A local electrochemical cell is created without having to immerse the entire work piece in a bath. The charge transfer mechanism can be used together with a charged particle beam or laser system to modify small structures, such as integrated circuits or micro-electromechanical system. The charge transfer process can be performed in air or, in some embodiments, in a vacuum chamber.

System for modifying small structures

A system and method for failure analysis of devices on a semiconductor wafer is disclosed. The present invention comprises the use of an inline focused ion beam milling tool to perform milling and image capturing of cross sections of a desired inspection point. The inspection points are located by identifying at least one fiducial that corresponds to an X-Y offset from the desired inspection point. The fiducials are recognized by a computer vision system. By automating the inspection process, the time required to perform the inspections is greatly reduced.

Inline low-damage automated failure analysis

The invention generally relates to semiconductor device processing, and more particularly to methods of accessing semiconductor circuits from the backside using ion-beam and gas-etch to mill deep vias through full-thickness silicon. A method includes creating a pocket in a material to be etched, and performing an isotropic etch of the material by flowing a reactive gas into the pocket and directing a focused ion beam into the pocket.

Method of accessing semiconductor circuits from the backside using ion-beam and gas-etch

System for modifying small structures using localized charge transfer mechanism to remove or deposit material

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Burlington, MA, United States of America

George Y Gu