Detection and classification of gate to S/D shorts using charge dynamics

Gate to source/drain (S/D) short is the most common and detrimental failure mechanism for advanced process technology development. In this paper, we demonstrate unique scan direction induced charging dynamics (SDCD) which stems from the transistor level response from electron beam inspection (EBI) scan. We found that SDCD effect is exceptionally useful for gate-S/D short induced voltage contrast (VC) defect detection, especially for identification of shorting locations. The unique SDCD effect signatures of gate-S/D shorts can be used as fingerprint for true short defect detection. Correlation with other characterization methods on the same defective location from EBI scan shows consistent results for various shorting mechanisms.