Start up of a Dual Beam FIB for Automatic STEM Sample Preparation

This paper deals primarily with the difficulties and solutions to STEM sample preparation. The dual beam focused ion beam (DBFIB) whole wafer platforms often come with scripting features which allow the tool to operate with a high level of automation. The main focus of the paper is on the variety of challenges which are encountered in trying to implement automated STEM and TEM sample fabrication with minimal operator input and the engineering solutions implemented to overcome the challenges. The paper demonstrates that the challenges with making STEM and TEM samples in a highly automated fashion by DBFIB, while difficult, are not insurmountable. It has highlighted a mechanical issue with the ion aperture motor mechanism, which required extensive troubleshooting to fully diagnose and correct. A long standing software routine had to be modified to fully enable script automation by extending the beam dwell time of the automatic brightness contrast routine.

TEM/STEM Sample Preparation for the Investigation of Solid State Structures: Applications to Electronic Devices and Computer Components

There has been a resurgence of the TEM/STEM being applied to the inspection and microanalysis of solid state electronic structures and devices. As the IC industry scaled down to submicron lines and spaces the IC designer, manufacturing processor and failure analyst required better “eyes” than the SEM could give. In addition to the image improvement, the TEM/STEM provided the microanalysis capability of microelectron diffraction (<30 angstroms) and sub-micron EDXA of ultra-thinned samples.