High-resolution stress measurements for microsystem and semiconductor applications

Research results obtained for local stress determination on micro and nanotechnology components are summarized. It meets the concern of controlling stresses introduced to sensors, MEMS and electronics devices during different micromachining processes. The method bases on deformation measurement options made available inside focused ion beam equipment. Removing locally material by ion beam milling existing stresses / residual stresses lead to deformation fields around the milled feature. Digital image correlation techniques are used to extract deformation values from micrographs captured before and after milling. In the paper, two main milling features have been analyzed - through hole and through slit milling. Analytical solutions for stress release fields of in-plane stresses have been derived and compared to respective experimental findings. Their good agreement allows to settle a method for determination of residual stress values, which is demonstrated for thin membranes manufactured by silicon micro technology. Some emphasis is made on the elimination of main error sources for stress determination, like rigid body object displacements and rotations due to drifts of experimental conditions under FIB imaging. In order to illustrate potential application areas of the method residual stress suppression by ion implantation is evaluated by the method and reported here.