Exploring capabilities of electrical linewidth measurement (ELM) techniques

In this paper, we have investigated the linearity of the electrical linewid th measurement, and the relation to the linewidth values measured with a CD -SEM. The collected data has shown an almost constant bias between ELM and SEM values tested down to 50 nm. A comparison between poly- and alpha -Si l ines with respect to different grain sizes was done. A further point of int erest was the influence of the geometry of a line (e.g. straight vs. bent), as well as the dependence of the ELM result with regard to a changing line width along its length. An overview of an error analysis for the whole expe rimental procedure is presented. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science BY All rights re served.