Methods of operating a nanoprober to electrically probe a device structure of an integrated circuit

Abstract

Methods for nanoprobing a device structure of an integrated circuit. The method may include scanning a primary charged particle beam across a first region of the device structure with at least one probe proximate to the first region and a second region of the device structure is masked from the primary charged particle beam. The method may further include collecting secondary electrons emitted from the first region of the device structure and the at least one probe to form a secondary electron image. The secondary electron image includes the first region and the at least one probe as imaged portions and the second region as a non-imaged portion. Alternatively, the second region may be scanned by the charged particle beam at a faster scan rate than the first region so that the second region is also an imaged portion of the secondary electron image.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.