Methods to Measure the Critical Dimension of the Bottoms of Through-Silicon Vias Using White-Light Scanning Interferometry

Abstract

Through-silicon vias (TSVs) are fine, deep holes fabricated for connecting vertically stacked wafers during three-dimensional packaging of semiconductors. Measurement of the TSV geometry is very important because TSVs that are not manufactured as designed can cause many problems, and measuring the critical dimension (CD) of TSVs becomes more and more important, along with depth measurement. Applying white-light scanning interferometry to TSV measurement, especially the bottom CD measurement, is difficult due to the attenuation of light around the edge of the bottom of the hole when using a low numerical aperture. In this paper we propose and demonstrate four bottom CD measurement methods for TSVs: the cross section method, profile analysis method, tomographic image analysis method, and the two-dimensional Gaussian fitting method. To verify and demonstrate these methods, a practical TSV sample with a high aspect ratio of 11.2 is prepared and tested. The results from the proposed measurement methods using white-light scanning interferometry are compared to results from scanning electron microscope (SEM) measurements. The accuracy is highest for the cross section method, with an error of 3.5%, while a relative repeatability of 3.2% is achieved by the two-dimensional Gaussian fitting method.