Micro Sheet Resistance Probing (µRSP)

The advancement of the semiconductor industry has an enormous impact on our daily lives and society in general. Examples of semiconductor products are central processing units, memory, imaging sensors in digital cameras and mobile phones. The list is inexhaustible. Major companies in this industry are Intel, IBM, AMD and  NEC Toshiba etc.

Consumers worldwide demand faster and better computers and exciting electronic gadgets at a very competitive price. To fulfil this massive demand and enormous consumer market, the semiconductor industry has continuously reduced production costs and decreased the size of basic structures which are the building block of e.g. computer chips. The smallest width of structures inside the latest Xeon Intel processors is 45 nm. The depth of ultra-shallow junctions (USJ) of the next generation 32-nm technology is less than 20 nm. To characterize the electrical properties (sheet resistance) of USJ is critical for the development and quality control of next generation semiconductors.

Our vision is to develop a novel metrology tool based on advanced silicon micromachining technology, which will enable the multibillion euro semiconductor industry to characterize USJ in the near future.

Figure. SEM pictures of µRSP. µRSP is a miniaturization of the well established four-point-probe metrology used for sheet resistance measurements. Left: top view, the cantilevers are about 25 µm long. Middel: front view. Right: zoom in of the front view.