Methods for determining charging in semiconductor processing
AssigneeTexas Instruments Incorporated
InventorsJohn Rodriguez, Anand Krishnan
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Abstract
Methods are disclosed for determining charging related to one or more semiconductor processing steps. A wafer having a substantially unpolarized ferroelectric capacitor formed therein is exposed to a processing operation. After processing, the ferroelectric capacitor is measured to determine the extent to which the processing operation polarized the ferroelectric capacitor, and a process related charging value is determined according to the ferroelectric capacitor polarization.
Claims30
A method of monitoring process related charging of a wafer, comprising:
- providing a ferroelectric capacitor in the wafer, the ferroelectric capacitor having substantially no net polarization;
- performing a processing operation on the semiconductor wafer;
- and
- determining a process related polarization of the ferroelectric capacitor.
A method of determining a voltage associated with a semiconductor processing step, the method comprising:
- providing a ferroelectric capacitor in a wafer, the ferroelectric capacitor having substantially no net polarization;
- performing the processing step on the semiconductor wafer;
- determining a process related polarization of the ferroelectric capacitor;
- and
- determining a voltage associated with the processing step according to the process related polarization.
A method of monitoring process charging in a semiconductor manufacturing process, comprising:
- providing a ferroelectric capacitor in a wafer;
- processing the semiconductor wafer according to the manufacturing process;
- and
- determining a charging value associated with the manufacturing process according to a post-processing polarization of the ferroelectric capacitor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.