Cathodoluminescence spectroscopy for failure analysis and process development of GaN-based microelectronic devices

This contribution assesses the potential of quantitative cathodoluminescence spectroscopy (CL) to speed up microelectronics development and failure analysis (FA). It does so through a recent example study performed on a High Electron Mobility Transistor substrate stack structure. The technique, performed on an Attolight AllalinTM tool, shows capabilities such as defect identification, stack layer recognition. In a second analysis step, the respective contributions of strain and composition variations are determined in AlGaN system, suggesting that at least in this case, composition and temperature trump strain in terms of contribution importance. This leads to the determination within less than 1% of the Al concentration in AlxGa1-xN alloys, which is at least as good as TEM EDS techniques, and is 1-2 orders of magnitude faster.