The industrial use of synchrotron radiation for TXRF analysis of Si wafers

The stalling shifts toward the 300 mm wafers has pushed the semiconductor industry toward an accelerated shrink of circuitry to increase the chip density on a single wafer. In turn, this move has put tighter specifications on particle contamination. Synchrotron Radiation TXRF is the only way out to decrease the limit of lower detection (LLD) below 10 8 at/cm 2 and provide the opportunity of fine mapping of contaminants at the wafer surface. At the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (E.S.R.F.) in Grenoble, an undulator beam line has been dedicated to satisfy the device industry in terms of LLD and mapping of contaminants ranging from Na to Hg. The use of Synchrotron Radiation may throw new light also on the origin of contamination by a chemical analysis of the impurities. This can be done by exploiting the tunability of Synchrotron Radiation in performing X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy around the relevant absorption edge.