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edfas.org 15 ELECTRONIC DEV ICE FA I LURE ANALYSIS | VOLUME 24 NO . 2 Fig. 7 Eight probes placed on a TSMC samplemanufactured in7nmtechnology. The accelerationvoltagewas 80V. Fig. 9 EBIRCH data recorded using a low electron beam acceleration voltage (500 eV) superimposed on the corresponding SEM image. Fig. 8 Same setup as shown in Fig. 7. In this case the accelerationvoltagewas40eVanda longeracquisition time was used. With shrinking technology nodes, the necessity of probing at even lower beamvoltages is predetermined by the electronbeam’s increased influence on the transistors’ electrical parameters. Future work aims at improved electron beams for low keV imaging and optimized parameters including the geometry of the probing system. The current limit of low kV imaging on the latest nodes is around 30 to 40 eV beam voltage. Figure 8 shows an example of the same 7 nmdevice fromFig. 7 imaged using a beamacceleration voltage of 40 eV. The transistor measurements shown above are often preceded or complemented by other investigations focused on fault isolation such as electron beam induced current imaging (EBIC), electron beam absorbed current imaging (EBAC), and electron beam induced resistance change (EBIRCH). An example of an EBIRCHanalysis taken from Reference 2 is shown in Fig. 9. References 1. J. Kang, et al.: “Electrical Characterization of Electron Beam Induced Damage on sub-10 nm n-channel MOS Transistors using Nano- probing Technique,” Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., 2016, 55, 111301. 2. A. Rummel, et al.: “Low-voltage EBIC Investigation of Fails,” 2021 IEEE International Symposium on the Physical and Failure Analysis of Integrated Circuits (IPFA), 2021, p. 1-6. ABOUT THE AUTHORS Andreas Rummel studied physics at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität in Tübingen focusing on electron and force microscopy. He is working on applied research and development in the field of electrical probing, sample preparation, and manipulation at Kleindiek Nanotechnik. AndrewJonathanSmith studiedchemistryat theHeinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf. After specializing in electrochemistry, he moved into the field of nanotechnology, studying arrays of metallic nanowires. In July 2008, he joined Kleindiek Nanotechnik and is responsible for sales support and application development.