BEOL of the Front-end

With geometries getting smaller,  inspection becomes both more challenging and crucial for defect-free and high-yield wafer manufacturing. The variety of defects at the Back-end-of-Line (BEOL) of the Front-end calls for detection optimization, fast screening and categorization of the high volume manufacturing environment, while maintaining high throughput.

BEOL of the Front-end inspection challenges vary from one process step to another, and include:

• In the lithography process step, defects of interest include: Defocus, bad coatings, blocked contacts, bridging, missing or extra patterns and critical dimension variation;
• In the etch process step, defects of interest include: Particles, pinholes, peeling, residues, water marks, scratches and corrosion;
• In the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process steps, defects of interest include: Scratch detection, residue detection, unpolished/insufficiently polished areas and brush marks;
• In the outgoing quality control (OQC) process step, defects of interest include: particles, pinholes, peeling, residues, water marks, scratches and corrosion.

Camtek’s Eagle platform can handle all these challenges and detect typical defects of interest at high volume manufacturing environment.