Ion implantation is a low-temperature process by which ions of one element are accelerated into a solid target, thereby changing the physical, chemical, or electrical properties of the target. Ion implantation is used in semiconductor device fabrication and in metal finishing, as well as in materials science research. The ions can alter the elemental composition of the target (if the ions differ in composition from the target) if they stop and remain in the target. Ion implantation also causes chemical and physical changes when the ions impinge on the target at high energy. The crystal structure of the target can be damaged or even destroyed by the energetic collision cascades, and ions of sufficiently high energy (tens of MeV) can cause nuclear transmutation.
Ion implantation equipment typically consists of an ion source, where ions of the desired element are produced, an accelerator, where the ions are electrostatically accelerated to a high energy or using radiofrequency, and a target chamber, where the ions impinge on a target, which is the material to be implanted. Thus ion implantation is a special case of particle radiation. Each ion is typically a single atom or molecule, and thus the actual amount of material implanted in the target is the integral over time of the ion current. This amount is called the dose. The currents supplied by implants are typically small (micro-amperes), and thus the dose which can be implanted in a reasonable amount of time is small. Therefore, ion implantation finds application in cases where the amount of chemical change required is small.
Typical ion energies are in the range of 10 to 500 keV (1,600 to 80,000 aJ). Energies in the range 1 to 10 keV (160 to 1,600 aJ) can be used, but result in a penetration of only a few nanometers or less. Energies lower than this result in very little damage to the target, and fall under the designation ion beam deposition. Higher energies can also be used: accelerators capable of 5 MeV (800,000 aJ) are common. However, there is often great structural damage to the target, and because the depth distribution is broad (Bragg peak), the net composition change at any point in the target will be small.
The energy of the ions, as well as the ion species and the composition of the target determine the depth of penetration of the ions in the solid: A monoenergetic ion beam will generally have a broad depth distribution. The average penetration depth is called the range of the ions. Under typical circumstances ion ranges will be between 10 nanometers and 1 micrometer. Thus, ion implantation is especially useful in cases where the chemical or structural change is desired to be near the surface of the target. Ions gradually lose their energy as they travel through the solid, both from occasional collisions with target atoms (which cause abrupt energy transfers) and from a mild drag from overlap of electron orbitals, which is a continuous process. The loss of ion energy in the target is called stopping and can be simulated with the binary collision approximation method.
Accelerator systems for ion implantation are generally classified into medium current (ion beam currents between 10 μA and ~2 mA), high current (ion beam currents up to ~30 mA), high energy (ion energies above 200 keV and up to 10 MeV), and very high dose (efficient implant of dose greater than 1016 ions/cm2). [1] [2] [3]
All varieties of ion implantation beamline designs contain general groups of functional components (see image). The first major segment of an ion beamline includes an ion source used to generate the ion species. The source is closely coupled to biased electrodes for extraction of the ions into the beamline and most often to some means of selecting a particular ion species for transport into the main accelerator section.
The ion source is often made of materials with a high melting point such as tungsten, tungsten doped with lanthanum oxide, molybdenum and tantalum. Often, inside the ion source a plasma is created between two tungsten electrodes, called reflectors, using a gas often based on fluorine containing the ion to be implanted whether it is germanium, boron, or silicon, such as boron trifluoride, [4] boron difluoride, [5] germanium tetrafluoride or silicon tetrafluoride. [6] Arsine gas or phosphine gas can be used in the ion source to provide arsenic or phosphorus respectively for implantation. [7] The ion source also has an indirectly heated cathode. Alternatively this heated cathode can be used as one of the reflectors, eliminating the need for a dedicated one, [8] [9] [10] or a directly heated cathode is used. [11]
Oxygen or oxide based gases such as carbon dioxide can also be used for ions such as carbon. Hydrogen or hydrogen with xenon, krypton or argon may be added to the plasma to delay the degradation of tungsten components due to the halogen cycle. [6] [10] [12] [13] The hydrogen can come from a high pressure cylinder or from a hydrogen generator that uses electrolysis. [14] Repellers at each end of the ion source continually move the atoms from one end of the ion source to the other, resembling two mirrors pointed at each other constantly reflecting light. [8]
The ions are extracted from the source by an extraction electrode outside the ion source through a slit shaped aperture in the source, [15] [16] then the ion beam then passes through an analysis magnet to select the ions that will be implanted and then passes through one or two [17] linear accelerators (linacs) [18] that accelerate the ions before they reach the wafer in a process chamber. [18] In medium current ion implanters there is also a neutral ion trap before the process chamber to remove neutral ions from the ion beam. [19]
Some dopants such as aluminum, are often not provided to the ion source as a gas but as a solid compound based on Chlorine or Iodine that is vaporized in a nearby crucible such as Aluminium iodide or Aluminium chloride or as a solid sputtering target inside the ion source made of Aluminium oxide or Aluminium nitride. [14] Implanting antimony often requires the use of a vaporizer attached to the ion source, in which antimony trifluoride, antimony trioxide, or solid antimony are vaporized in a crucible and a carrier gas is used to route the vapors to an adjacent ion source, although it can also be implanted from a gas containing fluorine such as antimony hexafluoride or vaporized from liquid antimony pentafluoride. [6] Gallium, Selenium and Indium are often implanted from solid sources such as selenium dioxide for selenium although it can also be implanted from hydrogen selenide. Crucibles often last 60–100 hours and prevent ion implanters from changing recipes or process parameters in less than 20–30 minutes. Ion sources can often last 300 hours. [20] [6]
The "mass" selection (just like in mass spectrometer) is often accompanied by passage of the extracted ion beam through a magnetic field region with an exit path restricted by blocking apertures, or "slits", that allow only ions with a specific value of the product of mass and velocity/charge to continue down the beamline. If the target surface is larger than the ion beam diameter and a uniform distribution of implanted dose is desired over the target surface, then some combination of beam scanning and wafer motion is used. Finally, the implanted surface is coupled with some method for collecting the accumulated charge of the implanted ions so that the delivered dose can be measured in a continuous fashion and the implant process stopped at the desired dose level. [21]
Semiconductor doping with boron, phosphorus, or arsenic is a common application of ion implantation. When implanted in a semiconductor, each dopant atom can create a charge carrier in the semiconductor after annealing. A hole can be created for a p-type dopant, and an electron for an n-type dopant. This modifies the conductivity of the semiconductor in its vicinity. The technique is used, for example, for adjusting the threshold voltage of a MOSFET. Ion implantation is practical due to the high sensitivity of semiconductor devices to foreign atoms, as ion implantation does not deposit large numbers of atoms. [2] Sometimes such as during the manufacturing of SiC devices, ion implantation is carried out while heating the SiC wafer to 500 °C. [22] This is known as a hot implant and it is used to control damage to the surface of the semiconductor. [23] [24] [25] Cryogenic implants (Cryo-implants) can have the same effect. [26]
The energies used in doping often vary from 1 KeV to 3 MeV and it is not possible to build an ion implanter capable of providing ions at any energy due to physical limitations. To increase the throughput of ion implanters, efforts have been made to increase the current of the beam created by the implanter. [2] The beam can be scanned across the wafer magnetically, electrostatically, [27] mechanically or with a combination of these techniques. [28] [29] [30] A mass analyzer magnet is used to select the ions that will be implanted on the wafer. [31] Ion implantation is also used in displays containing LTPS transistors. [18]
Ion implantation was developed as a method of producing the p-n junction of photovoltaic devices in the late 1970s and early 1980s, [32] along with the use of pulsed-electron beam for rapid annealing, [33] although pulsed-electron beam for rapid annealing has not to date been used for commercial production. Ion implantation is not used in most photovoltaic silicon cells, instead, thermal diffusion doping is used. [34]
One prominent method for preparing silicon on insulator (SOI) substrates from conventional silicon substrates is the SIMOX (separation by implantation of oxygen) process, wherein a buried high dose oxygen implant is converted to silicon oxide by a high temperature annealing process.
Mesotaxy is the term for the growth of a crystallographically matching phase underneath the surface of the host crystal (compare to epitaxy, which is the growth of the matching phase on the surface of a substrate). In this process, ions are implanted at a high enough energy and dose into a material to create a layer of a second phase, and the temperature is controlled so that the crystal structure of the target is not destroyed. The crystal orientation of the layer can be engineered to match that of the target, even though the exact crystal structure and lattice constant may be very different. For example, after the implantation of nickel ions into a silicon wafer, a layer of nickel silicide can be grown in which the crystal orientation of the silicide matches that of the silicon.
Nitrogen or other ions can be implanted into a tool steel target (drill bits, for example). The structural change caused by the implantation produces a surface compression in the steel, which prevents crack propagation and thus makes the material more resistant to fracture. The chemical change can also make the tool more resistant to corrosion.
In some applications, for example prosthetic devices such as artificial joints, it is desired to have surfaces very resistant to both chemical corrosion and wear due to friction. Ion implantation is used in such cases to engineer the surfaces of such devices for more reliable performance. As in the case of tool steels, the surface modification caused by ion implantation includes both a surface compression which prevents crack propagation and an alloying of the surface to make it more chemically resistant to corrosion.
Ion implantation can be used to achieve ion beam mixing, i.e. mixing up atoms of different elements at an interface. This may be useful for achieving graded interfaces or strengthening adhesion between layers of immiscible materials.
Ion implantation may be used to induce nano-dimensional particles in oxides such as sapphire and silica. The particles may be formed as a result of precipitation of the ion implanted species, they may be formed as a result of the production of a mixed oxide species that contains both the ion-implanted element and the oxide substrate, and they may be formed as a result of a reduction of the substrate, first reported by Hunt and Hampikian. [35] [36] [37] Typical ion beam energies used to produce nanoparticles range from 50 to 150 keV, with ion fluences that range from 1016 to 1018 ions/cm2. [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] The table below summarizes some of the work that has been done in this field for a sapphire substrate. A wide variety of nanoparticles can be formed, with size ranges from 1 nm on up to 20 nm and with compositions that can contain the implanted species, combinations of the implanted ion and substrate, or that are comprised solely from the cation associated with the substrate.
Composite materials based on dielectrics such as sapphire that contain dispersed metal nanoparticles are promising materials for optoelectronics and nonlinear optics. [42]
Implanted Species | Substrate | Ion Beam Energy (keV) | Fluence (ions/cm2) | Post Implantation Heat Treatment | Result | Source | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Produces Oxides that Contain the Implanted Ion | Co | Al2O3 | 65 | 5*1017 | Annealing at 1400 °C | Forms Al2CoO4 spinel | [38] |
Co | α-Al2O3 | 150 | 2*1017 | Annealing at 1000 °C in oxidizing ambient | Forms Al2CoO4 spinel | [39] | |
Mg | Al2O3 | 150 | 5*1016 | --- | Forms MgAl2O4 platelets | [35] | |
Sn | α-Al2O3 | 60 | 1*1017 | Annealing in O2 atmosphere at 1000 °C for 1 hr | 30 nm SnO2 nanoparticles form | [46] | |
Zn | α-Al2O3 | 48 | 1*1017 | Annealing in O2 atmosphere at 600 °C | ZnO nanoparticles form | [40] | |
Zr | Al2O3 | 65 | 5*1017 | Annealing at 1400 °C | ZrO2 precipitates form | [38] | |
Produces Metallic Nanoparticles from Implanted Species | Ag | α-Al2O3 | 1500, 2000 | 2*1016, 8*1016 | Annealing from 600 °C to 1100 °C in oxidizing, reducing, Ar or N2 atmospheres | Ag nanoparticles in Al2O3 matrix | [41] |
Au | α-Al2O3 | 160 | 0.6*1017, 1*1016 | 1 hr at 800 °C in air | Au nanoparticles in Al2O3 matrix | [42] | |
Au | α-Al2O3 | 1500, 2000 | 2*1016, 8*1016 | Annealing from 600 °C to 1100 °C in oxidizing, reducing, Ar or N2 atmospheres | Au nanoparticles in Al2O3 matrix | [41] | |
Co | α-Al2O3 | 150 | <5*1016 | Annealing at 1000 °C | Co nanoparticles in Al2O3 matrix | [39] | |
Co | α-Al2O3 | 150 | 2*1017 | Annealing at 1000 °C in reducing ambient | Precipitation of metallic Co | [39] | |
Fe | α-Al2O3 | 160 | 1*1016 to 2*1017 | Annealing for 1 hr from 700 °C to 1500 °C in reducing ambient | Fe nanocomposites | [43] | |
Ni | α-Al2O3 | 64 | 1*1017 | --- | 1-5 nm Ni nanoparticles | [44] | |
Si | α-Al2O3 | 50 | 2*1016, 8*1016 | Annealing at 500 °C or 1000 °C for 30 min | Si nanoparticles in Al2O3 | [45] | |
Sn | α-Al2O3 | 60 | 1*1017 | --- | 15 nm tetragonal Sn nanoparticles | [46] | |
Ti | α-Al2O3 | 100 | <5*1016 | Annealing at 1000 °C | Ti nanoparticles in Al2O3 | [39] | |
Produces Metallic Nanoparticles from Substrate | Ca | Al2O3 | 150 | 5*1016 | --- | Al nanoparticles in amorphous matrix containing Al2O3 and CaO | [35] |
Y | Al2O3 | 150 | 5*1016 | --- | 10.7± 1.8 nm Al particles in amorphous matrix containing Al2O3 and Y2O3 | [35] | |
Y | Al2O3 | 150 | 2.5*1016 | --- | 9.0± 1.2 nm Al particles in amorphous matrix containing Al2O3 and Y2O3 | [36] |
Each individual ion produces many point defects in the target crystal on impact such as vacancies and interstitials. Vacancies are crystal lattice points unoccupied by an atom: in this case the ion collides with a target atom, resulting in transfer of a significant amount of energy to the target atom such that it leaves its crystal site. This target atom then itself becomes a projectile in the solid, and can cause successive collision events. Interstitials result when such atoms (or the original ion itself) come to rest in the solid, but find no vacant space in the lattice to reside. These point defects can migrate and cluster with each other, resulting in dislocation loops and other defects.
Because ion implantation causes damage to the crystal structure of the target which is often unwanted, ion implantation processing is often followed by a thermal annealing. This can be referred to as damage recovery.
The amount of crystallographic damage can be enough to completely amorphize the surface of the target: i.e. it can become an amorphous solid (such a solid produced from a melt is called a glass). In some cases, complete amorphization of a target is preferable to a highly defective crystal: An amorphized film can be regrown at a lower temperature than required to anneal a highly damaged crystal. Amorphisation of the substrate can occur as a result of the beam damage. For example, yttrium ion implantation into sapphire at an ion beam energy of 150 keV to a fluence of 5*1016 Y+/cm2 produces an amorphous glassy layer approximately 110 nm in thickness, measured from the outer surface. [Hunt, 1999]
Some of the collision events result in atoms being ejected (sputtered) from the surface, and thus ion implantation will slowly etch away a surface. The effect is only appreciable for very large doses.
If there is a crystallographic structure to the target, and especially in semiconductor substrates where the crystal structure is more open, particular crystallographic directions offer much lower stopping than other directions. The result is that the range of an ion can be much longer if the ion travels exactly along a particular direction, for example the <110> direction in silicon and other diamond cubic materials. [47] This effect is called ion channelling, and, like all the channelling effects, is highly nonlinear, with small variations from perfect orientation resulting in extreme differences in implantation depth. For this reason, most implantation is carried out a few degrees off-axis, where tiny alignment errors will have more predictable effects.
Ion channelling can be used directly in Rutherford backscattering and related techniques as an analytical method to determine the amount and depth profile of damage in crystalline thin film materials.
In fabricating wafers, toxic materials such as arsine and phosphine are often used in the ion implanter process. Other common carcinogenic, corrosive, flammable, or toxic elements include antimony, arsenic, phosphorus, and boron. Semiconductor fabrication facilities are highly automated, but residue of hazardous elements in machines can be encountered during servicing and in vacuum pump hardware.
High voltage power supplies used in ion accelerators necessary for ion implantation can pose a risk of electrical injury. In addition, high-energy atomic collisions can generate X-rays and, in some cases, other ionizing radiation and radionuclides. In addition to high voltage, particle accelerators such as radio frequency linear particle accelerators and laser wakefield plasma accelerators present other hazards.
MEMS is the technology of microscopic devices incorporating both electronic and moving parts. MEMS are made up of components between 1 and 100 micrometres in size, and MEMS devices generally range in size from 20 micrometres to a millimetre, although components arranged in arrays can be more than 1000 mm2. They usually consist of a central unit that processes data and several components that interact with the surroundings.
Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to manufacture semiconductor devices, typically integrated circuits (ICs) such as microprocessors, microcontrollers, and memories. It is a multiple-step photolithographic and physico-chemical process during which electronic circuits are gradually created on a wafer, typically made of pure single-crystal semiconducting material. Silicon is almost always used, but various compound semiconductors are used for specialized applications.
A semiconductor is a material that is between the conductor and insulator in ability to conduct electrical current. In many cases their conducting properties may be altered in useful ways by introducing impurities ("doping") into the crystal structure. When two differently doped regions exist in the same crystal, a semiconductor junction is created. The behavior of charge carriers, which include electrons, ions, and electron holes, at these junctions is the basis of diodes, transistors, and most modern electronics. Some examples of semiconductors are silicon, germanium, gallium arsenide, and elements near the so-called "metalloid staircase" on the periodic table. After silicon, gallium arsenide is the second-most common semiconductor and is used in laser diodes, solar cells, microwave-frequency integrated circuits, and others. Silicon is a critical element for fabricating most electronic circuits.
In physics, sputtering is a phenomenon in which microscopic particles of a solid material are ejected from its surface, after the material is itself bombarded by energetic particles of a plasma or gas. It occurs naturally in outer space, and can be an unwelcome source of wear in precision components. However, the fact that it can be made to act on extremely fine layers of material is utilised in science and industry—there, it is used to perform precise etching, carry out analytical techniques, and deposit thin film layers in the manufacture of optical coatings, semiconductor devices and nanotechnology products. It is a physical vapor deposition technique.
Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a III-V direct band gap semiconductor with a zinc blende crystal structure.
Epitaxy refers to a type of crystal growth or material deposition in which new crystalline layers are formed with one or more well-defined orientations with respect to the crystalline seed layer. The deposited crystalline film is called an epitaxial film or epitaxial layer. The relative orientation(s) of the epitaxial layer to the seed layer is defined in terms of the orientation of the crystal lattice of each material. For most epitaxial growths, the new layer is usually crystalline and each crystallographic domain of the overlayer must have a well-defined orientation relative to the substrate crystal structure. Epitaxy can involve single-crystal structures, although grain-to-grain epitaxy has been observed in granular films. For most technological applications, single-domain epitaxy, which is the growth of an overlayer crystal with one well-defined orientation with respect to the substrate crystal, is preferred. Epitaxy can also play an important role in the growth of superlattice structures.
Neutron generators are neutron source devices which contain compact linear particle accelerators and that produce neutrons by fusing isotopes of hydrogen together. The fusion reactions take place in these devices by accelerating either deuterium, tritium, or a mixture of these two isotopes into a metal hydride target which also contains deuterium, tritium or a mixture of these isotopes. Fusion of deuterium atoms results in the formation of a helium-3 ion and a neutron with a kinetic energy of approximately 2.5 MeV. Fusion of a deuterium and a tritium atom results in the formation of a helium-4 ion and a neutron with a kinetic energy of approximately 14.1 MeV. Neutron generators have applications in medicine, security, and materials analysis.
In semiconductor production, doping is the intentional introduction of impurities into an intrinsic (undoped) semiconductor for the purpose of modulating its electrical, optical and structural properties. The doped material is referred to as an extrinsic semiconductor.
Radiation hardening is the process of making electronic components and circuits resistant to damage or malfunction caused by high levels of ionizing radiation, especially for environments in outer space, around nuclear reactors and particle accelerators, or during nuclear accidents or nuclear warfare.
Furnace annealing is a process used in semiconductor device fabrication which consist of heating multiple semiconductor wafers in order to affect their electrical properties. Heat treatments are designed for different effects. Wafers can be heated in order to activate dopants, change film to film or film to wafer substrate interfaces, densify deposited films, alter states of grown films, repair damage from implants, move dopants or drive dopants from one film into another or from a film into the wafer substrate. During ion implantation process, the crystal substrate is damaged due to bombardment with high energy ions. The damage caused can be repaired by subjecting the crystal to high temperature. This process is called annealing. Furnace anneals may be integrated into other furnace processing steps, such as oxidations, or may be processed on their own.
An ion beam is a beam of ions, a type of charged particle beam. Ion beams have many uses in electronics manufacturing and other industries. There are many ion beam sources, some derived from the mercury vapor thrusters developed by NASA in the 1960s. The most widely used ion beams are of singly-charged ions.
Deep reactive-ion etching (DRIE) is a special subclass of reactive-ion etching (RIE). It enables highly anisotropic etch process used to create deep penetration, steep-sided holes and trenches in wafers/substrates, typically with high aspect ratios. It was developed for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), which require these features, but is also used to excavate trenches for high-density capacitors for DRAM and more recently for creating through-silicon vias (TSVs) in advanced 3D wafer level packaging technology.
Sputter deposition is a physical vapor deposition (PVD) method of thin film deposition by the phenomenon of sputtering. This involves ejecting material from a "target" that is a source onto a "substrate" such as a silicon wafer. Resputtering is re-emission of the deposited material during the deposition process by ion or atom bombardment. Sputtered atoms ejected from the target have a wide energy distribution, typically up to tens of eV. The sputtered ions can ballistically fly from the target in straight lines and impact energetically on the substrates or vacuum chamber. Alternatively, at higher gas pressures, the ions collide with the gas atoms that act as a moderator and move diffusively, reaching the substrates or vacuum chamber wall and condensing after undergoing a random walk. The entire range from high-energy ballistic impact to low-energy thermalized motion is accessible by changing the background gas pressure. The sputtering gas is often an inert gas such as argon. For efficient momentum transfer, the atomic weight of the sputtering gas should be close to the atomic weight of the target, so for sputtering light elements neon is preferable, while for heavy elements krypton or xenon are used. Reactive gases can also be used to sputter compounds. The compound can be formed on the target surface, in-flight or on the substrate depending on the process parameters. The availability of many parameters that control sputter deposition make it a complex process, but also allow experts a large degree of control over the growth and microstructure of the film.
Ion beam mixing is the atomic intermixing and alloying that can occur at the interface separating two different materials during ion irradiation. It is applied as a process for adhering two multilayers, especially a substrate and deposited surface layer. The process involves bombarding layered samples with doses of ion radiation in order to promote mixing at the interface, and generally serves as a means of preparing electrical junctions, especially between non-equilibrium or metastable alloys and intermetallic compounds. Ion implantation equipment can be used to achieve ion beam mixing.
In condensed-matter physics, a collision cascade is a set of nearby adjacent energetic collisions of atoms induced by an energetic particle in a solid or liquid.
A dopant is a small amount of a substance added to a material to alter its physical properties, such as electrical or optical properties. The amount of dopant is typically very low compared to the material being doped.
Monolayer doping (MLD) in semiconductor production is a well controlled, wafer-scale surface doping technique first developed at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2007. This work is aimed for attaining controlled doping of semiconductor materials with atomic accuracy, especially at nanoscale, which is not easily obtained by other existing technologies. This technique is currently used for fabricating ultrashallow junctions (USJs) as the heavily doped source/drain (S/D) contacts of metal–oxide–semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) as well as enabling dopant profiling of nanostructures.
James Walter Mayer was an applied physicist, who was active in the field of ion-solid interactions. His accomplishments played a critical role in the development of the solid-state particle detector; the field of ion beam analysis of materials, and the application of ion implantation to semiconductors.
Igor Serafimovich Tashlykov was a Soviet and Belarusian physicist, who was awarded the Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences degree (1989). He was a member of the Belarusian Physical Society (1995). He carried out research at the Research Institute of Applied Physical Problems (APP) of the Belarusian State University, the Belarusian State Technological University, the Maxim Tank Belarusian State Pedagogical University (BSPU).
Differential Hall Effect Metrology (DHEM) is an electrical depth profiling technique that measures all critical electrical parameters through an electrically active material at sub-nanometer depth resolution. DHEM is based on the previously developed Differential Hall Effect (DHE) method. In the traditional DHE method, successive sheet resistance and Hall effect measurements on a semiconductor layer are made using Van der Pauw and Hall effect techniques. The thickness of the layer is reduced through successive processing steps in between measurements. This typically involves thermal, chemical or electrochemical etching or oxidation to remove material from the measurement circuit. This data can be used to determine the depth profiles of carrier concentration, resistivity and mobility. DHE is a manual laboratory technique requiring wet chemical processing for etching and cleaning the sample between each measurement, and it has not been widely used in the semiconductor industry. Since the contact region is also affected by the material removal process, the traditional DHE approach requires that contacts be newly and repeatedly be made to collect data on the coupon. This introduces contact related noise and reduces the repeatability and stability of the data. The speed, accuracy and, depth resolution of DHE has been generally limited because of its manual nature. The DHEM technique is an improvement over the traditional DHE method in terms of automation, speed, data stability and, resolution. DHEM technique had been deployed in a semi-automated or automated tools.