Advanced Microscopy Services

Advanced microscopy techniques such as SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy), TEM (Transmission Electron Microscopy) and Dual Beam SEM are essential techniques to investigate sample microstructure, morphology, particle size, particle coatings and defects. These techniques often employ elemental mapping capabilities such as EELS (Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy) and EDS (Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy), which provide valuable information about elemental composition and location/distribution.

EAG offers a broad range and large installed base of different microscopy tools and services to match your application, ranging from process development to failure analysis. In addition to providing high resolution imaging, our analytical capability makes us a unique partner that can help you during research, development, and analysis of failures.

Microscopy techniques can be used to characterize many types of defects. These include:

Metal migration: FIB cross-section and investigation by STEM/EDS
Voids: FIB cross-section and investigation by SEM
Particles: Surface imaging or FIB cross-section to investigate size, chemistry and position in the layer stack
Cracks and Delaminations: Small area FIB cross-sections or large area argon ion milled cross sections determine the location and of the delaminated interface. If needed, the interface chemistry can then be determined by TEM micro-analysis.
Thickness and Uniformity: FIB cross-section and investigation by SEM

The types of materials tested using advanced microscopy techniques:

Nanoparticles
Alloys and metals
Thin films
Coatings on glass, silicon or carbon-based substrates
Ceramics
Composite materials
IC devices
Aluminum anodization

Industrial Applications of Microscopy

There has been a rapid emergence of new technologies, which has enabled new industries such as facial recognition, autonomous driving, virtual reality, and 5G communication. These growth areas typically include FinFET, VCSEL, and III/V compound semiconductors. For our Advanced Microscopy team, the materials indicate hetero-epitaxy, cubic and hexagonal lattices, where failures in devices often have complicated 3D structures.

Recent development of FIB technology enables high-precision TEM sample preparation of 3D logic and memory devices. This example shows a HAADF image of a gate cut from a 22 nm generation 3D FinFET device with L_Gate~30 nm, as seen in a recent paper by the EAG Laboratories Advanced Microscopy team that was presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 25 (S2): 690-691 (2019) “Industrial Applications of Electron Microscopy: A Shared Laboratory Perspective”

Link to Paper

Another interesting example is the picture below that shows an aluminum nitride/silicon carbide interface observed using HR-STEM imaging.

In the example below, we observe GaN Dislocation Typing: Burgers Vector Analysis with Large-Angle Convergent-Beam Electron Diffraction (LACBED)

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