Listen to what you have never seen before

Industry’s first and only in-line, non-destructive subsurface metrology system for advanced semiconductor manufacturing. The AUDIRA system provides highly accurate and reproducible nanometer-level measurements of buried features and defects, such as voids, in advanced memory and logic devices.

AUDIRA combines an acoustic microscopy technique with our own proprietary atomic force microscopy (AFM) technology. The AFM probe is used to ‘listen’ to the sound waves coming through the wafer layers. The wave interacts with all the transitions and surfaces within the device and reflects information back. The pattern of that reflected wave and the time of arrival contains data about the structure below the surface. AUDIRA scans across the die, with each step as small as several tenths of a nanometer. The data is then translated into a comprehensive pattern of the underlying layers that provides measurement of subsurface features.

AUDIRA is also valuable for measuring shallow features through the surface. Using the AFM probe, surface elasticity variations can be quickly measured to reveal details about the structure below. Nearfield Instruments works with customers to develop a recipe for when to use acoustics and at what frequency, for which layers local elasticity measurements are best, and when to switch to wave propagation schemes.

AUDIRA is available for ordering now.