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Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Defect Analysis - A Critical Step To Improving Manufacture Process And Product Quality

By Roy van Rivero


Part of an industry process that plays an imperative role in product manufacturing is defect analysis. This critical step is carried out by the use of advanced technologies, which are capable of examining defects at micro and nano levels. As a result, improved manufacturing process is realized, which is a key component to producing products of better quality. Indeed, defect analysis is of vital importance to delivering better products to the end-users - products that give optimum performance.

One good example of a particular industry that is benefiting from defect analysis is semiconductor's. Integrated circuit manufacturers, for instance, are now able to detect even the slightest defect on the substrates and do the fixing as needed, which is vital to producing end-products that are of better quality. Through the help of advanced equipment, the challenge of examining materials at micro and nano levels is addressed - thanks to the innovative minds in the industry for developing such useful tools. Some examples of these technologies include FE-SEM, which is used to image the surface topology of any solid material with high spatial resolution; FIB-SEM, which is utilized for site-specific analysis, deposition, as well as ablation of materials.

Some microscopes used for defect analysis

Helios NanoLab(TM) DualBeam - an equipment designed to deliver a powerful solution for advanced nanoscale research. It has the capability to produce ultra-thin samples for S/TEM and the most accurate prototyping capabilities.

Tecnai(TM) TEM - an equipment designed to provide a truly universal imaging and analysis solution; this is intended for life sciences, material sciences, nanotechnology and the semiconductor, as well as data storage industries.

Magellan XHR SEM - this equipment, without analytical capabilities being compromised, is capable of giving surface-sensitive imaging performance at sub-nanometer resolution.

Advanced methods for defect analysis

3D Metrology - this process is utilized to scale the interior of complex object non-destructively; a method employed to process control, component qualification, tool correction, and reverse-engineering.

Circuit Edit - this means performing microsurgery on integrated circuit devices; semiconductor companies utilize focused ion beam (FIB) tools to perform this process.

Failure Analysis - a process used in collecting and analyzing data to determine the reason of a failure.

TEM Lamella Preparation - also uses focused ion beam to perform the process, it also includes FIB milling and polishing of front side of TEM lamella, then sample is rotated 180 degrees, which is milled and polished as well; then, pick up of TEM lamella with lift-out tool.




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