The
research focus of CICFAR is on the investigation and
development of new techniques and instrumentation systems
for the characterization, and physical and failure analysis
of electronic materials, devices and circuits, and the
application of these techniques and systems for reliability
studies.
New
instrumentation under development includes the scanning
electron acoustic microscope (SEAM), and miniature
electron-optical components and scanning electron microscope
(SEM) systems. SEM cathodoluminescence, scanning probe
microscopies (scanning capacitance microscopy, scanning
thermal microscopy and scanning near-field optical
microscopy) and near-infrared Photon Emission Microscopy are
being developed for material and device characterisation.
The
reliability of thin oxides, hot-carrier reliability, and
interconnect reliability form a major focus area, where the
underlying physical mechanisms leading to device degradation
are being studied. Aspects of this work involve the
investigation of quasi-breakdown in thin oxides,
investigation of oxide reliability under high-field impulse
stressing, development of a void-extraction method for
interconnect reliability, and the modelling of
quantum-mechanical effects of holes in pMOSFETs.
Current research activities in 2005 include the development
of advanced SEM techniques, prototyping of a miniature SEM,
fundamental studies in SEAM, development work on
nano-characterisation techniques, and continued efforts in
device reliability characterisation.
