Simulations of the transmission small angle x-ray scattering for three-dimensional architectures

The semiconductor industry’s device dimensions continue shrinking and device architectures increase in 3D complexity, while incorporating new materials. To keep pace with these changes, new critical in-line metrology accurately and efficiently evaluating the structural profiles will be needed. Small angle X-ray scatterometry shows promise to be considered for critical dimension (CD) metrology for future nodes. In this paper, we report simulation results of the transmission small angle X-ray scattering (T-SAXS) metrology to evaluate its measurement capability for 3D periodic architectures. Based on measurability analysis for various 3D structural models, T-SAXS shows a good potential solution to the future 3D architectures measurement.