LAUSR

Stress and strain effect the performance—mechanical and otherwise—of materials at all length scales. In semiconductors, strain has a strong influence on carrier mobility that is exploited by manufacturers to improve device characteristics including power efficiency. Strain engineered devices are now commonplace, but the strain metrology solutions with spatial resolution below 100 nm are limited, particularly so for 3-dimensional (3D) devices. Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) is capable of measuring strain with very high spatial resolution, but this offline metrology is slow, expensive, and the sample preparation alters the mechanical boundary conditions of the structures. As an alternative, strain measurement by Electron Backscattered Diffraction (EBSD) provides high spatial resolution and can be performed on a wafer inline during production without TEM sample preparation constraints.