KLA-Tencor, Milpitas, Calif., introduces the 2910 Series optical wafer defect inspection platform with NanoPoint technology, and the eDR-7100 electron-beam wafer defect review system. Meeting the need for accelerated defect sourcing on advanced devices, these tools combine increased speed with seamless connectivity to quickly find and identify defects that inhibit yield and reliability. The 2910 Series improved defect capture and the eDR-7100’s enhanced review resolution have been demonstrated by detecting and imaging unique defects located at the bottom of three-dimensional or vertical pattern structures such as FinFETs.
Building on the defect discovery capabilities produced by KLA-Tencor’s patented NanoPoint technologies, the 2910 Series features new optical apertures and inspection modes that have been shown to provide a substantial improvement in the capture of several yield-critical defect types, such as voids, bridges, and bottom bridges. In addition, the tools feature a significant increase in throughput over the previous-generation 2900 Series, enabling engineers to sample more wafers or inspect additional process levels for faster identification of yield excursions.
The eDR-7100 includes fourth-generation e-beam immersion optics, producing improved resolution and additional review modes for imaging a wide range of defect types, with a particular benefit being the tool’s ability to locate and identify defects at the bottom of complex pattern features or high-aspect ratio structures. These technical advances also enable enhanced throughput compared to the eDR-7000, allowing engineers to sample additional defects to gain a more accurate understanding of the defect population on the wafer. Since IC fabs increasingly require e-beam review of unpatterned wafer defects detected by inspectors such as the Surfscan SP3, the eDR-7100 features a new optical microscope and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) compositional analysis subsystem to aid in the classification and characterization of bare wafer defects.
