Study of chemical staining on metallization for SEM image quality effect improvement

Chemical staining is commonly used to delineate sample for construction analysis. A wide range of wet etchants are available such as acid-based, alkaline-based solutions and organic solvents. Etch artifacts and over-etched profile maybe observed after wet staining on metal profile. Wet chemical treatment is also essential after dry etching during RIE delayering to reveal metallization of interest. The plasma residue on metal surface should be eliminated to enable accurate metal profile inspection. In this paper, the impact of different wet chemical solutions on SEM image quality is presented. Construction analysis and delayering were focused on metallization.