Raman spectroscopy and its applications in semiconductor processing

Stresses in silicon devices that are introduced during semiconductor processing are a serious concerns in semiconductor fabs. The main sources for stress are doping, surface processing methods and the final chip separation process. Raman spectroscopy is a non-destructive metrology tool that can measure stresses in silicon. Here we present results of Raman analysis that were performed along the different stages of the semiconductor processing chain. In this paper we focused on surface processing and the chip separation process. Our investigations show that micro-Raman spectroscopy is a powerful tool for measuring stress levels and distributions quantitatively on entire productive wafers as well as on the final chip.