Semiconductors
As semiconductor fabrication moves to ever smaller geometries the importance of material analysis becomes more critical for new product development, process improvements, failure analysis and intellectual property protection or resolution within the industry.
CERAM provides a comprehensive range of analytical investigative services to help with early stage developments and yield improving process changes, to failure analysis and the provision of product or process evaluation to support intellectual property rights.
CERAM’s state-of-the-art analytical measurement and characterisation capabilities can help you to reduce development times and costs during the early stages of R&D, facilitate the transfer of processes into production by qualifying new production tools and methods, and assist in finding the causes of failures to deliver improved batch yields. Our experts can also aid in licensing and in protecting IP claims - especially in the case of disputes and their resolution.
Use of CERAM’s facilities can provide insight into innovation, development, improvement, and process challenges, for example:
- bulk analysis of the purity of input raw materials & feed stock
- determination of thin film thickness, stress, layer composition, and impurities
- depth profiling and evaluation of dopant diffusion
- surface chemical and elemental mapping, including impurities
- defect, contaminant, and dopant detection
- critical dimensions.
The substrates that CERAM has experience in working with include:
Semiconductors
- silicon and related materials
- silicon-germanium
- gate oxides including high k dielectrics
- III/V compound semiconductors, including GaAs, InP and related materials.
Photovoltaics
- silicon-a-silicon and micro crystalline silicon
- cadmium telluride (CdTe) and related materials
- copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS)
- III/V materials for concentrator PVs
- oxides including novel transparent conducting oxides (TCOs).
Typical Semiconductor Projects at CERAM:
- evaluation of doped structures for shallow junction depth profiling
- characterisation of ultra-thin oxynitride gate dielectrics
- characterisation of silicon-germanium in semiconductors including depth resolution
- SIMS analysis of strained Si-Ge quantum wells
- wafer contamination within the semiconductor industry.
CERAM Examines Layer Growth and Doping Uniformity in Solar Photovoltaics
SIMS depth profiling
CERAM Investigates Electrical Drift in MOSFET Devices
SIMS analysis provided by CERAM
CERAM Reveals the Cause of Corrosion during the Manufacture of Semiconductor Devices
Expert analysis provided by CERAM