Exploring capabilities of electrical linewidth measurement (ELM) techniques

In this paper, we have investigated the linearity of the electrical linewidth measurement, and the relation to the linewidth values measured with a CD-SEM. The collected data has shown an almost constant bias between ELM and SEM values tested down to 50 nm. A comparison between poly- and alpha -Si lines with respect to different grain sizes was done. A further point of interest was the influence of the geometry of a line (e.g. straight vs. bent), as well as the dependence of the ELM result with regard to a changing linewidth along its length. An overview of an error analysis for the whole experimental procedure is presented. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science BY All rights reserved.