Non-contact method to monitor and quantify effective work function of metals
AssigneeSEMILAB Semiconductor Physics Laboratory Co., Ltd.
InventorsDmitriy Marinskiy, Thye Chong Loy, Jacek Lagowski, Sung-Li Wang, Lin-Jung Wu, Shyh-Shin Ferng, Yi-Hung Lin, Sheng-Shin Lin
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An example semiconductor wafer includes a semiconductor layer, a dielectric layer disposed on the semiconductor layer, and a layer of the metal disposed on the dielectric layer. An example method of determining an effective work function of a metal on the semiconductor wafer includes determining a surface barrier voltage of the semiconductor wafer, and determining a metal effective work function of the semiconductor wafer based, at least in part, on the surface barrier voltage.
Claims15
A method of determining an effective work function of a metal on a dielectric on a semiconductor wafer, the method comprising:
- measuring a surface voltage of the metal using a probe;
- determining a surface barrier voltage of the semiconductor wafer from the measured surface voltage of the metal;
- and
- determining the effective work function of the metal on the dielectric on the semiconductor wafer based, at least in part, on the surface barrier voltage.
A system comprising:
- a probe for measuring a surface barrier voltage of a semiconductor wafer, wherein a dielectric disposed on the semiconductor wafer and metal is disposed on the dielectric;
- one or more processors in communication with the probe;
- and
- non-transitory memory in communication with the one or more processors, the non-transitory memory storing instructions, which, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to determine an effective work function of the metal on the dielectric on the semiconductor wafer based, at least in part, on the measured surface barrier voltage.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.