Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

We request this grant to enable the acquisition of a confocal microscope for critical and timely morphological characterizations of quantum and nanoelectronic devices, micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS), 2.5D and 3D microsystems, and smart microelectronic packages. This confocal microscope will not only provide us with 3D imagery with the increased XY plane resolution necessary for these applications and unavailable throughstandard optical microscopy, but more importantly permit height measurement in the Z direction with a resolution in the nm range. The requested tool has the following specifications: i) fast imagery of small to large surfaces (m2 to mm2); ii) 100 nm resolution in XY plane and nanometer scale resolution in Z direction; iii) in-process characterization capability; iv) topography measurements of transparent and reflective surfaces; and v) XY motorized stage with memories capability of automatic image stitching. The microscope will be used routinely for microfabrication process characterization and development, as well as material and device characterization. For heterogeneous integration and smart packaging, the microscope will be exploited for accurately assessing topologies and geometries of a large number of features on a given die or package such as interconnections, termination pads and through-silicon-vias (TSVs). For the fabrication of nanoelectronic devices, quantum qubits and emerging memories, the 3D microscope allows essential in-process monitoring of gate stack etching, junction engineering as well as intensive surface and 3D topographical characterization for device and material characterization. In MEMS, uniformity constraints over millimetre size regions are required for the moving elements which comprise sub-micron scale films across structures 100s of microns wide for which both local roughness and large scale deformations are relevant; the 3D confocal microscope will be a critical asset for the characterization of such features. The proposed 3D metrology system will not only enable an increased pace of research for the 6 professors that support this proposal but also open new opportunities within the 3IT academic and industrial ecosystem. The research community developed around the Quantum Institute, 3IT and C2MI allows the researchers to address larger scale projects spanning single device development through complete system integration. The proposed tool will support this trend by providing fast and accurate in-process metrology of complex systems. In addition, country-wide exploitation of the 3D confocal microscope will be available as a result of 3ITs participation in the CMC MNT Portal (~800 professors, ~7000 graduate students), which allows graduate students from other Canadian universities to be trained onsite and access 3IT equipment.