Contactless Measurement of Sheet Resistance Using Impulse Voltage

A novel method for the contactless sheet resistance measurement is presented. The sheet resistance of a silicon wafer has been conventionally measured using the four-point probe technique. However, the high mechanical pressure of the probe causes pitting and structural damage in semiconductor wafers...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on magnetics 2011-10, Vol.47 (10), p.2581-2583
Main Authors: Saotome, Hideo, Oi, Shota, Akimoto, Shota
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Capacitors
Coils
Contactless
Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science
rheology
Electrical resistance measurement
Exact sciences and technology
impulse voltage
Magnetic cores
magnetic induction
Materials science
Other topics in materials science
Physics
Resistance
Semiconductor device measurement
sheet resistance
Voltage measurement
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Summary:A novel method for the contactless sheet resistance measurement is presented. The sheet resistance of a silicon wafer has been conventionally measured using the four-point probe technique. However, the high mechanical pressure of the probe causes pitting and structural damage in semiconductor wafers. Therefore, to prevent such damage, a contactless measurement technique was devised that employs electromagnetic induction. The conventional contactless method is implemented using high frequency sinusoidal magnetic excitation with a Robinson marginal oscillator as an excitation current supply. However, the oscillator gain drifts due to an increase in temperature during continuous scanning of the wafer, which causes an error in the resistance measurement. The proposed method does not require an analogue electronic circuit; therefore, more precise measurement is expected. This novel method utilizes an impulse voltage to generate an eddy current in the sheet under test. However, no high voltage source is required, because the impulse voltage is generated by cutting off the DC current flowing through the winding of a ferrite core facing the sheet.
ISSN:0018-9464
1941-0069
DOI:10.1109/TMAG.2011.2153829