Method of monitoring ion contamination in integrated circuits

摘要

A method of monitoring ion contamination in integrated circuits is disclosed. The method makes use of the electric field induced by bias voltages and the heating circuit provided in the integrated circuit to raise temperature in order to drive mobile ions into or out of the gate oxide layer of a MOS transistor. Then, the threshold voltages of the MOS transistor under different ion contamination are measured respectively. The ion contamination induced whether in front-end process or back-end process can be detected properly.