Patent ID: 6174739
Filing Date: 2001-01-16
Classification: H01L

Abstract:
A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device, wherein the method comprises:(a) forming a layer of an interlayer dielectric on a surface of the semiconductor device;(b) forming at least one opening in the layer of interlayer dielectric; and(c) non-destructively determining the profile of the at least one opening in tile layer of interlayer dielectric by:scanning the at least one opening with two excitation pulses, wherein the excitation pulses are overlapped in time and space so that they interfere to form a spatially and temporally varying excitation radiation field that excites acoustic waveguide modes that have a wavelength and orientation corresponding to an excitation wavevector that occurs via impulsive simulated thermal scattering that causes a time-dependent ripple to be generated, wherein the frequency of the ripple oscillations is dependent on the thickness of the film;irradiating the ripple by a probe pulse that diffracts to form at least two signal beams, wherein the at least two signal beams are modulated in accordance to the time dependence of the acoustic waveguide modes;detecting one of the at least two signal beams;generating a light-induced signal that is digitized by an a/d converter to produce a digitized waveform signal;analyzing the digitized waveform signal in a CPU;obtaining a frequency of the digitized waveform signal; andcomparing the digitized waveform signal to characterization waveforms stored in a database to determine the profile of the at least one opening.