Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 March 2019
Recently, semiconductors have been integrated and densified to much higher levels. Under this circumstance, control of surface impurity on the Si substrate has become more important. We have attempted to increase analytical sensitivity of the transition metals, which have the greatest influence on productivity.
For the last few years, x-ray fluorescence analysis, using total reflection as a non-destructive and speedy method, has been applied for surface impurity analysis of Si wafers. However, this method is insufficiently sensitive (to the level required for surface impurity analysis) and the lower detection limit is still 1011 to 1012 atoms/cm2 order because the continuous x-ray excitation causes lots of scattering which makes the background higher.