The present invention relates to a method and system for inspecting a bonded interface of a silicon wafer.
For decades, mechanical and optical approaches have been employed for experimental stress analysis of a structure. With regard to a mechanical approach, a strain gauge is typically employed as a sensor to determine strain induced within an object when subjected to a load. A strain gauge is able to rapidly provide accurate information about the strain readings. However, it needs to be in contact with the object for measurement and the measurement points are limited by the number of strain gauges being used. Consequently, full field strain visualization is not possible.
Ultrasonic microscopy/Scanning Acoustic Microscopy (SAM) extracts the residual stress by measuring acoustic impedance obtained from the propagation of acoustic waves with changes of wave speed in a medium under different stresses. This method provides satisfactory results only when the material is uniform in microstructure and composition. An example of such a material is silicon. However, this method is time consuming and not suitable for real time manufacturing process measurement and monitoring. Furthermore, non-homogeneity in a material results in inaccurate stress prediction. As such, defects/de-bonding due to trapped particles at a bonded interface may not be correctly identified.
Photoelastic methods which have demonstrated some potential have been adapted for full-field stress analysis. Photoelastic methods are one of the oldest but potentially useful experimental methods for analyzing stress or strain in engineering mechanics applications. In photoelastic methods, a polariscope (an instrument based on the fundamentals of photoelasticity which utilize polarized light to obtain the stress state in a loaded birefringent material) is typically utilised. There are two types of polariscope that are frequently employed—a plane polariscope 20 (
With regard to the inspection of trapped particles at the bonded interface of silicon wafer, conventional Infrared Transmission (IRT) techniques have been widely employed in manufacturing industries such as, for example, semiconductor, MEMS, photovoltaic and the like. An inspection setup using IRT is shown in
Consequently, grey field polariscopes were developed to compensate the shortcomings of conventional IRT techniques. Grey field polariscopes are an evolution of circular polariscopes. Grey field polariscopes have been developed for full field photoelastic stress analysis. Grey field photoelasticity was pioneered by Jon Lesniak at Stress Photonics to provide visible full field birefringence measurement in glass components. Successful implementation in the glass industry has led to use in silicon substrate applications using similar setups with halogen illumination sources that transmit near Infrared wavelength. The grey field polariscope 50 illustrated in
Photoelastic methods and grey field polariscopes have been used to detect de-bonding caused by trapped particles/gases using the generated stress pattern. Multiple images at different orientations of analyzer 24 are captured and computer processing is required to generate a shear stress image. Subsequently, a ‘buttery’ shaped stress pattern generated due defect/de-bonding is readily identifiable in the processed residual stress image. However, even though IR-GFP techniques enable high sensitivity inspection, it is typically not desirable for a manufacturer to adopt such inspection techniques which do not provide results in real time.
It is evident that there are issues in the aforementioned inspection techniques.
In a first aspect, there is provided a method for real time inspection of a silicon wafer. The method includes using an infrared plane polariscope to obtain an image of a bonded interface of the silicon wafer, the image showing stress patterns; and assessment of the stress patterns. The stress patterns in a form of at least one butterfly pattern indicates a presence of at least one of: at least one trapped particle, trapped gases and at least one de-bonding region. No computer/algorithm processing is carried out to locate defects/de-bondings at the bonded interface. Furthermore, the stress fields being generated can be used to approximate the size of the de-bonding region/trapped particle.
The size of the at least one butterfly pattern is typically larger than a size of the at least one of: at least one trapped particle, trapped gases and at least one de-bonding region. The size of the stress patterns is proportional to a size of the at least one of: at least one trapped particle, trapped gases and at least one de-bonding region.
The method may further include rotating at least one of an analyzer and a polarizer of the infrared plane polariscope to carry out phase shifting. The rotation of the at least one of the analyzer and the polarizer is carried out respectively either by manual rotation or using an actuator. The phase shifting is carried out to investigate isoclinics and phase retardation. The magnitude and direction of stress generated by the at least one of: at least one trapped particle, trapped gases and de-bonding region is obtainable from the investigation of isoclinics and phase retardation.
Assessing of the stress patterns may be carried out using known image processing software and hardware. The use of known image processing software and hardware is employed during instances of poor lighting conditions.
Finally, a level of intensity of light emerging from the analyzer correlates to stress generated by the at least one of: at least one trapped particle, trapped gases and at least one de-bonding region.
In a second aspect, there is provided a system for real time inspection of a silicon wafer using an infrared plane polariscope to obtain an image of a bonded interface of the silicon wafer.
In order that the present invention may be fully understood and readily put into practical effect, there shall now be described by way of non-limitative example only preferred embodiments of the present invention, the description being with reference to the accompanying illustrative figures.
The present invention provides a method and system for carrying out fast real time inspections for a bonded interface of a silicon wafer pair (with defect/de-bonding due to trapped particles/gases) using an infrared plane polariscope (IR-PP). The method employs the fundamentals of photoelasticity together with unique arrangements for the optical components being used. The stress fields generated by trapped particles/gases are used to locate defect positions. Moreover, the method also provides a photoelastic stress analysis to determine direction of shear stress for birefringent materials. No computer/algorithm processing is carried out to locate defects/de-bondings at the bonded interface. Furthermore, the stress fields being generated can be used to approximate the size of the de-bonding area/trapped particle. It should be appreciated that the present invention is suitable for use with both glass-silicon bonded wafer inspection and silicon-silicon bonded wafer inspection. The present invention may also be usable with other forms of birefringent materials.
There are two optical arrangements for a system of the present invention. The first optical arrangement illustrated in
The arrangements 60, 70 are used to visualize full-field phase retardation superposed with principle stress direction of defect/trapped particles at bonded interface of the birefringent materials in real time. The arrangements 60, 70 do away with the use of quarter-waveplates. Consequently, the errors introduced by quarter waveplates in measurement can be reduced. The placement of a specimen under test should not introduce additional stress to the specimen (of a birefringent material). The present invention may employ a vertical setup configuration, whereby the specimen under test can rest on a flat surface without a need for clamping. In a horizontal system setup configuration, clamping of specimen is needed to hold the specimen in position during measurement, consequently introducing additional stress around the clamping area. Clamping forces exerted on extremely thin specimens might result in damage around the clamping edge and changes in local stresses.
Using either of the aforementioned setups 60, 70, the Infrared Plane Polariscope (IR-PP) is developed to provide real time and high resolution defects inspection at a bonded interface of silicon wafer. The use of the IR-PP allows stress patterns generated by trapped particles to be observed and assessed in real time without using computer/algorithm processing. The IR-PP does not require a quarter waveplate yet is still able to provide desirable sensitivity and measurement speed characteristics. Furthermore, doing away with a quarter waveplate minimises alignment issues for the IR-PP and consequently reduces errors caused by the mis-alignment of the quarter waveplate. Moreover, it is also possible to obtain quantitative data by using phase shift techniques whereby the intensity data from three or more different phases are recorded.
For typical plane polariscopes, the axes of polarization are perpendicular to each other. Such polariscopes are described as dark field polariscopes, whereby the intensity is zero if no loaded birefringent material exists between them. In plane polariscopes, polarized light is incident onto the polarizer 64. The incident light will emerge from the polarizer 64 as plane polarized light along a polarization axis of the polarizer 64. Since the polarization axes are crossed, no light can be seen passing from the analyzer 66 if no birefringent material is positioned in the path of the incident light. When stressed birefringent material is located in between the polarizer 64 and the analyzer 66, upon entering the birefringent material, the single polarized light ray will split into two perpendicular light components, namely the ordinary and the extra-ordinary. These polarized light components travel a same distance through the thickness of material with different speed and optical path lengths because each is affected by a refractive index of the birefringent material. Thus, when a birefringent material is placed within the dark field plane polariscope, the birefringent material splits the polarized light into two perpendicular polarized light components, whereby a first component will travel along a fast axis while a second component will travel along a slow axis but along the same direction. The first component which travels along the fast axis is equal to S1, while the second component which travels along the slow axis is equal to S2. When the first and second components emerge from the material, there exists a relative phase difference, called the relative retardation, which contribute to the formation of fringes. The first and second components as seen from the analyzer 66 are actually the components that travel parallel to the polarization axis of analyzer 66.
By using Jones calculus, for a plane polariscope, keeping polarizer 64 at arbitrary angle α and analyzer 66 at arbitrary angle β, the intensity of the light transmitted through analyzer 66 can be described using the following equation:
I=a
2[cos2(δ/2)cos2(β−α)+sin2(δ/2)cos2(β+α−2θ) (1)
I is the intensity of light at the region of interest.
a is the amplitude of the source.
α is the orientation of polarization axis of polarizer 64.
β is the orientation of polarization axis of analyzer 66.
θ is the angle between the polarization axis of polarizer 64 and direction of principle stress/isoclinics.
δ is the principle stress difference due to birefringence in the specimen/isochromatics.
In the present invention, for real time inspection, dark field plane polariscope configuration is adopted. α is set at 90° and 6 is set at 0° and equation 1 reduces to:
I=a
2[sin2(δ/2)sin22 θ] (2)
I is the intensity of light at the region of interest.
a is the amplitude of the source.
θ is the angle between the polarization axis of polarizer 64 and direction of principle stress/isoclinics.
δ is the principle stress difference due to birefringence in the specimen/retardation.
From equation 2, retardation and isoclinics are superposed on one another. This is referred to as isoclinics and retardation interaction. This phenomenon becomes an added advantage for the detection of trapped particles of this invention.
In the present invention, the intensity image contains phase information that is affected by both direction of principle stress and principle stress difference. To access the individual stress parameters, phase shifting technique can be employed. Phase shifting is achieved by rotation of at least one of the polarizer 64 and the analyzer 66 using predetermined steps. Multiple intensity images are captured by rotating the optical elements in known steps to obtain a set of intensity equations. Each of the intensity images contains phase information changes for every state of the polarizer 64 and the analyzer 66. With sufficient amount of phase shifted images, parameters that contain the phase information can be calculated using one of several known algorithms. In this invention, for illustrative purposes, Buckberry and Towers's algorithm is the known algorithm which is employed. In this algorithm, one bright field and four dark field arrangements are needed as shown in the following example. The intensity equations for various combinations of α and β are listed in
θ=1/4 tan−1(I4−I5)/(I3−I2) (3)
δ=cos−1[I1+I2−2(I3+I2)]/(I1+I2) (4)
Referring to
The butterfly patterns can be viewed directly from residual stress images like
Subsequently, an infrared plane polariscope (IR-PP) is used to perform inspections on bonded wafers via transmission mode (as shown in
Phase shifting algorithm can be adapted to investigate isoclinics and phase retardation individually.
The comparison between trapped particles and stress patterns will now be demonstrated using the reflection type arrangement 60 and the transmission type arrangement 70. Referring to
With reference to
A comparison of stress pattern images using different light source is shown in
It should be appreciated that there is no necessity to rotate optical elements for rapid real time inspection of the birefringent materials. Rotation of optical elements, for phase shifting can be carried out to separate stress information such as phase retardations and direction of principle stress. The rotation of the optical elements can be carried out either by manual rotation or using an actuator like an electronically controlled motor. It should be appreciated that existing polariscopes like IR-GFP require more complex optical arrangements to incorporate phase shifting techniques to get the stress information.
Based on the description of the preceding paragraphs, reference is made to
The IR-PP 60, 70 as described in the preceding paragraphs allows real time inspection of a bonded quality for silicon wafers. Currently the semiconductor industry, particularly wafer fabs are looking for rapid inspection methods for the wafer bonding process. The IR-PP 60, 70 can be readily integrated into existing production lines such that the advantages as mentioned in the preceding paragraphs can be enjoyed by existing production lines.
Based on the preceding description, it is evident that a system for real time inspection of a silicon wafer(s) can be implemented with the use of the IR-PP 60, 70 (which one depends on composition of the wafer), particularly using the method as described in the preceding paragraphs. It is apparent that the system using IR-PP 60, 70 to obtain the requisite images for real time inspection of a silicon wafer(s) can also be readily integrated into existing production lines.
Whilst there has been described in the foregoing description preferred embodiments of the present invention, it will be understood by those skilled in the technology concerned that many variations or modifications in details of design or construction may be made without departing from the present invention.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/SG13/00148 | 4/14/2013 | WO | 00 |
Number | Date | Country | |
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61625355 | Apr 2012 | US |