NANOPROBING AN INTEGRATED CIRCUIT DEVICE STRUCTURE

摘要

A method for nanoprobing a device structure (82) of an integrated circuit includes scanning a primary charged particle beam (25) across a first region of the device structure with at least one probe (24a, 26a, 28a, 30a) proximate to the first region and a second region (91) of the device structure is masked from the primary charged particle beam. The method further includes collecting secondary electrons (35) emitted from the first region of the device structure and the at least one probe to form a secondary electron image (94). The secondary electron image includes the first region and the at least one probe as imaged portions and the second region as a non-imaged portion. Alternatively, the second region may be scanned by the charged particle beam at a faster scan rate than the first region so that the second region is also an imaged portion of the secondary electron image.