INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS PUBLISHING MEASUREMENT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Meas. Sci. Technol. 15 (2004) 35–43 PII: S0957-0233(04)65357-4

Defect detection in unpolished Si wafers

by digital shearography
Ganesha Udupa1 , B K A Ngoi1 , H C Freddy Goh2 and M N Yusoff1
1
Precision Engineering and Nanotechnology Centre, School of Mechanical and Production
Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang Avenue, 639798, Singapore
2
International Semiconductors Products Pte. Ltd, 629013, Singapore

Received 24 June 2003, in final form 9 September 2003, accepted for

publication 16 September 2003
Published 14 October 2003
Online at stacks.iop.org/MST/15/35 (DOI: 10.1088/0957-0233/15/1/005)

Abstract
Defects in silicon wafers have been of great scientific and technological
interest since before the earliest days of the silicon transistor. Recently
much attention has been focused on crystal originated pits on the polished
surface of the wafer. These defects have been shown to contribute to gate
dielectric breakdown. The present work relates to surface and/or subsurface
defect inspection systems for semiconductor industries and particularly to an
inspection system for defects such as swirl defects and groups of particles in
unpolished silicon wafers before the wafer reclamation and/or the wafer
fabrication process using a digital shearography technique. The method
described here relates specifically to semiconductor wafers, but may be
generalized to any other samples. In the present work, surface or subsurface
defects are detected and evaluated by stressing the silicon wafer while
looking for defect-induced anomalies in a fringe pattern, generated by the
interference of two speckle patterns, in the CCD camera and digital image
processing.

Keywords: COPs, digital shearography, semiconductor defect detection

(Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version)

1. Introduction
Silicon wafers are widely used in the semiconductor and
microelectronics industries. With this material, there is
an immense need to obtain a defect-free highly polished
surface for improved yield and performance of the micro-
components. The current practice in the semiconductor
industry is to inspect the wafers for any surface defects only
at the end of the final polishing stage. At this stage, the
subsurface defects are visible (as they have been exposed by
polishing) as minute spots forming spiral rings or ‘swirls’.
These subsurface defects, which cannot be detected before
the reclamation process or wafer fabrication process, cause
a high wafer rejection rate at the end of the finishing stage.
Unfortunately, there is no instrument currently available to
inspect the ‘prime’/‘test’ wafers at the subsurface level before
wafer fabrication/reclamation.
Several techniques such as x-ray, atomic force mi-
croscopy, scanning tunnelling microscopy, scanning electron
microscopy, and acoustic scanning electron microscopy have
been utilized for the surface defect characterization [1]. How-
ever, in the semiconductor industry, the main challenge lies in
the characterization of subsurface as well as surface defects.
There has been very little research work in the characterization
of subsurface defects in Si wafers.
Optical interferometric techniques have been used for non-
destructive testing (NDT) of objects. Two of these techniques
are electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI) and
speckle shearing interferometry, also known as shearography.
These techniques have been used to detect hidden defects
in aircraft parts, turbine blades, space vehicles, automobiles
and many other products [2]. Shearography is a laser
optical method, which is suited for either NDT or for
strain analysis. In contrast to holography, which measures
surface displacements, shearography measures derivatives
of surface displacements. Since strains are functions of
displacement derivatives, shearography allows strains to be
determined without numerical differentiating displacement
data. Defects in objects normally create strain concentrations;
it is easier to correlate defects with strain anomalies

0957-0233/04/010035+09$30.00 © 2004 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK 35

G Udupa et al
using shearography than displacement anomalies applying
holography. Furthermore, rigid body motions do not produce
strain, thus shearography is insensitive to such motions and
does not need to adopt any particular device for vibration
isolation [2].
The bare, ground, lapped or etched wafer surfaces are used
to inspect the subsurface defects by digital shearography [3].
The qualitative inspection of subsurface defects and the
principles and method of inspection are described in this paper.
The quantitative analysis and serial automatic measurement of
small areas are being carried out using a macro focus lens at
different locations on the wafer to detect distributed subsurface
wafer particles of micron size.
2. Inspection in semiconductor wafer manufacturing
The Semiconductor Industry Association’s (SIA) International
Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors [4] identifies lack
of progress in the inspection and characterization of defects
and particles on wafers to be a potential barrier to device
miniaturization. The roadmap specifies that by 2005, 30 nm
particles must be detectable on bare silicon and nonmetallic
films, 39 nm particles on metallic films and 100 nm particles
on wafer backsides, for which no solutions currently exist.
Semiconductor wafer manufacturers already use lasers to
detect particles on expensive silicon wafers, which contain
hundreds of chips. But the manufacturing operation must be
shut down while workers try to determine what the particles
are made of and where they came from, especially when large
quantities are found. The source of the particles must be
eliminated before production can resume. As the features in
circuits are getting smaller every 18 months or so, the size of a
killer defect is getting smaller and smaller. Because circuits in
new computer chips are only slightly wider than the particles,
the contaminants are large enough to short-circuit the tiny
‘wires’ in the chips. With the need to detect smaller defects,
the costs of inspecting wafers are skyrocketing. In order for
new advances to be implemented in production environments,
improvements in sensitivity must be achieved.
The processing cost of silicon wafers and the control of
defects (at sub-micron size and, especially, those present at
subsurface level) on these wafers are most critical to the wafer
fabrication/reclamation industries. It has been reported that
millions of dollars were lost each year owing to the failure
of detecting these defects in silicon wafers prior to the wafer
fabrication/reclamation processes. The wafers produced by
the wafer fabrication process are called as ‘prime’ wafers.
Wafers which fail to meet certain standards, will be rejected
at different stages of the fabrication process. These rejected
wafers are known as ‘test’ wafers. ‘Test’ wafers are useful
for monitoring the operation of the device manufacturing steps
during trial runs before the start of actual device manufacturing
using the ‘prime’ wafers. ‘Test’ wafers can be used 5–6
times for trail runs and, prior to each trial, they have to be
processed or reclaimed (stripping and lapping through to fine
polishing). Wafer reclamation is a re-processing technology
used on rejected wafers during the wafer fabrication.
In wafer reclamation industries, a general rule is that a
wafer with a subsurface defect at a depth of 15 µm and a
defect size of more than 10 µm in diameter is considered to
36
be a defective wafer. This is because, each time the wafer is
reclaimed, about 15 µm thickness of wafer will be processed
and inspected for particles.
The study of defects in silicon crystals has been an integral
part of silicon research activity from the earliest days of the
silicon transistor. In the mid-1970s, Rozgonyi [5] noted the
importance of suitable diagnostics in detecting and identifying
the various types of defects in the crystal. Over the last
two decades, many new diagnostic tools have been developed
and effectively employed. This led the industry to a greatly
improved understanding of defects in silicon and resulted in
a significant reduction in yield losses while the number of
processing steps increased more than eightfold [6].
Typically, a semiconductor wafer may have a very large
number of defects, of varying patterns, such as swirl, cluster
or random particles, voids, scratches, cracks or damage,
which may have resulted from a great number of causes,
such as crystal pulling during crystal growth or improper
control of process parameters during the lapping, etching
and polishing processes. Among all of these, the most
interesting were the ‘swirl’ defects, which were attributed to
vacancy clustering such as voids or vacancy-type dislocation
loops, until their discovery by electron microscope. Swirl
defects are classified into two types: ‘A’ (larger) and ‘B’
(smaller). In 1975, ‘A’ defects were identified as interstitial-
type dislocation loops by electron microscopy, although ‘B’
defects could not be detected [7]. The practitioners in
the production lines prefer abbreviations like ‘COP’ (crystal
originated particles or pits) or ‘LPD’ (light point defects). The
COPs have attracted much interest because they may decrease
reliability and manufacturing yield of semiconductor devices.
Recently, COPs have been recognized as surface defects
or micro-pits generated during the crystal ingot growing
process and detected by particle counters after surface cleaning
processes [8].
In order to increase the yield in the manufacturing process,
the said defects are to be detected at an early stage of the
process as well as controlled during the production process.
In the mid 1980s, surface (visual) defects (scratches, voids,
particles, masking errors, etc) were considered to have the
greatest impact on semiconductor yield. This led to the
development of automatic surface defect detection equipment
and fabrication procedures designed to identify, control and
eliminate sources of surface defects. Commercial wafer defect
inspection systems, such as KLA’s Tencor instrument, are
currently available to surface inspect the defects at the end
of the manufacturing process in semiconductor industries.
Unfortunately the same level of success has not been achieved
for subsurface (non-visual) defects. Optical or e-beam
techniques that have been used successfully to identify and
remove sources of surface defects cannot be applied to
subsurface defects. Some of these defects are generally
associated with open contacts or vias, gate dielectric defects or
parametric variation, and residues or voids within the device
structures. Without tools to identify, measure and analyse these
defects, attempts to eliminate them are limited to trial and
error efforts. As a result, subsurface defects comprise 65%
of all the reasons for yield loss [9]. So it is very important to
detect and analyse the subsurface defects in the wafer before
making them into devices. An attempt has been made here for

Unpolished Silicon Wafers Unpolished Silicon Wafers
Polishing Silicon wafers
no
(whole batch) Defect?
Polishing
yes no (good wafers only)
Defect?
READY FOR IC FABRICATION
RECYCLE
BIN
Significant reduction
of defective wafers &
Cost savings
Patterned Wafer
Conventional process Our process
Figure 1. The flowchart for in-line metrology of subsurface defect
detection for semiconductor wafer manufacturing/reclamation
industries.
the first time to detect subsurface defects in an unpolished Si-
wafer by digital shearography. Figure 1 shows the flowchart
for in-line metrology of subsurface defect detection proposed
to benefit the semiconductor wafer manufacturing/reclamation
industries.
3. Principles of digital shearography
Digital shearography falls in the family of digital speckle
pattern interferometry (DSPI). Digital shearography is an
optical interferometric technique that measures surface strain
concentrations caused by surface and subsurface flaws or
defects due to some sort of load, usually either thermal, vacuum
or vibration excitation. In shearography one object point splits
into two in the image plane by a shearing device, thus two
laterally sheared images are observed using CCD camera. The
shearing device may use a Michelson interferometric principle
or a double refractive prism. The two laterally sheared images
interfere with each other producing a random interference
pattern commonly known as a speckle pattern. The pattern
is random, and depends on the characteristics of the surface
of the object. When the object is deformed, by temperature,
pressure or other means, the random interference pattern will
change. The amount of the change depends on the soundness
of the object. A comparison of the random speckle patterns
for the deformed and undeformed states, and their respective
fringe patterns, gives information about the structural integrity
of the object. A flaw or defect in the object usually induces a
strain concentration which is translated into an anomaly in the
fringe pattern. The method is called shearography because one
image of the object is laterally displaced, or sheared, relative
to the other image.
Digital speckle shearing interferometry or digital
shearography uses a CCD camera and computer image
processing to produce the fringe anomaly patterns indicative
of the defects in objects. The applicability of shearing
interferometry to measuring deformations is further enhanced
using phase shifting (also called phase stepping). Under
stable conditions, phase shifting interferometers have a higher
sensitivity than systems without phase shifting. Phase shifting
interferometers calculate the phase distribution from several
interference patterns, which is then displayed on a video
monitor.
Defect detection in unpolished Si wafers by digital shearography
Shearographic image may be mathematically represented
as [10]
I = I0 (1 + µ cos φ) (1)
yes where I is the intensity distribution of the speckle pattern
received at the image plane of the camera, I0 is the intensity of
the laterally sheared images (dc intensity), µ is the amplitude
of modulation of the speckle patterns (visibility) and φ is the
random phase angle.
RECYCLE
BIN After the object is deformed, the intensity distribution
becomes
I
= I0 [1 + µ cos(φ + φ)] (2)
where φ denotes phase change due to surface deformation
(change in the optical path length of light scattered from two
neighbouring points). The difference of intensities I and I
is
Id = I
− I = 2I0 [µ sin(φ + φ/2) sin(φ/2)] (3)
where Id manifests itself as a fringe pattern in which dark fringe
corresponds to
φ = 2nπ with n = 0, 1, 2, 3 . . . .
Bright fringes correspond to φ = (2n + 1)π.
It may be shown that φ is related to the relative
displacement (δu, δv, δw) of the two neighbouring points
P(x, y, z) and P(x + δx, y, z), where δx is the amount of
shearing in the x direction, as follows:
φ = 2π/λ(Aδu + Bδv + Cδw) (4)
where (u, v, w) and (u + δu, v + δv, w + δw) are the
displacement vectors of P(x, y, z) and P(x + δx, y, z).
A, B and C are sensitivity factors that are related to the
positions of the illumination point Ps (xs , ys , z s ) and the camera
Pc (x0 , y0 , z 0 ), as represented in figure 2, and
A = (x − x0 )/R0 + (x − xs )/Rs
B = (y − y0 )/R0 + (y − xs )/Rs
C = (z − y0 )/R0 + (z − xs )/Rs
R02 = x02 + y02 + z 02 and Rs2 = xs2 + ys2 + z s2 .
When surface points are considered, φ is related to the
displacement derivative through the following:
φ = 2π/λ[Aδu/δx + Bδv/δx + Cδw/δx]δx or
(5)
φ = 2π/λ[A∂u/∂x + B∂v/∂x + C∂w/∂x]δx
where λ is the wavelength.
If the beams are confined in x–z plane and θ is the
angle between the illumination beam and the z-axis (imaging
direction), the sensitivity factor B becomes zero and the
measurement is insensitive to ∂v/∂x. For measuring the slope
(first order derivative) of the out-of-plane displacement as
in our experimental configuration, the phase changes due to
surface deformation in this case can be expressed as
φ = 2π/λ[(sin θ )∂u/∂x + (1 + cos θ )∂w/∂x]δx. (6)
37
G Udupa et al
Ps (x s, ys, z s)
P (x, y, z)
Pc (x 0, y0, z 0)
P (x+u, y+v, z+w)
X
Before
Loading Deformation Y Collimator
after loading
Figure 2. Position of a point on a specimen in relation to
illumination and camera point before and after the deformation.
For normal illumination θ = 0, equation (6) becomes
φ = 4π/λ[∂w/∂x]δx.
If the shear is along y direction, then
φ = 4π/λ[∂w/∂y]δy.
4. Description of the wafer defect detection system
In the present work, surface and subsurface defects are detected
and evaluated by stressing the silicon wafer while looking
for defect-induced anomalies in a fringe pattern, generated by
the interference of two speckle patterns, in the CCD camera
and digital image processing. Figure 3 shows a schematic
diagram of the measuring system based on an out-of-plane
displacement gradient sensitive configuration. The major parts
are the illumination source, shearographic head and the image
acquisition. The source of light is a 35 mW He–Ne laser at a
wavelength of 632.8 nm. The shearographic head consists of a
CCD camera and the shearing element. The shearing element
is an interferometer in Michelson arrangement. A beam
splitter and two adjustable mirrors (M3 and M4), followed
by a zoom lens, image the wafer onto the CCD camera.
The direction and amount of shear are altered by tilting the
mirror M4 through the required angle. The CCD array
has 752 (H) × 582 (V) pixels. A macro video zoom lens
(18–108 mm, f 2.5), with the working distance variable
between a maximum of infinity (without close up lens) and a
minimum of 140 mm (with close up lens), is fixed to the CCD
camera (2/3

format). The zoom lens can be manually adjusted
for focus and aperture control. With the working distance at
about 600 mm, the zoom lens and camera were capable of
recording a field of view that ranged from 198 mm × 264 mm
at the low magnification to 33 mm × 44 mm at the high
magnification. Using the close up lens, the size of the field
of view is about 6 mm × 8 mm at a working distance of
140 mm. To view a 200 mm diameter wafer, the camera-to-
object distance was about 600 mm. The camera was connected
to a Pentium 4 computer for image acquisition and analysis.
The wafer under test is illuminated by a laser beam through
a collimator and a spatial filter (SF2). A 10×-microscope
objective combined with 25 µm pinhole spatial filter (SF2)
is used to get the required beam expansion. The scattered
light from the wafer is imaged on a CCD camera through the
38
Mirror M1
He-Ne Laser
Spatial filter SF1
PC
Z
CCD
Camera
Wafer Mount
Zoom
Lens
Mirror M3
Beam
Splitter
Wafer Mirror M4
Thermal
Loading Device Spatial filter SF 2
Mirror M2
Figure 3. A schematic diagram of the wafer defect detection system
sensitive to out-of-plane displacement gradient.
shearing element. The shearing element allows a coherent
superposition of two laterally displaced images of the wafer
in the image plane. The lateral displacement is called the
shear of the images. The superposition of the two images
is called the shearogram, which is an interferogram of an
object wave with the sheared object wave as a reference wave.
Two such interferograms are recorded for different loading
conditions of the wafer sample. The loading should induce
some deformation or alter the deformation state of the surface
of the sample. Typical loading methods are thermal, acoustical
or vacuum and could be applied in a static or dynamic way.
In the present work, an infrared lamp is used as the source of
thermal loading. Figure 4 shows the experimental set-up of
the wafer defect detection system.
The absolute difference of two shearograms recorded
for different loading situations of the wafer results in an
interference fringe pattern, which is directly correlated to the
difference in deformation state. Defects inside the wafer may
alter the local surface deformation induced by the loading and
result in a disturbance of the (more or less regular) loading
fringes. This allows the detection and classification of defects
using the shearographic fringe images.
5. Results and discussion
5.1. Study of surface defects in Si wafer
Before inspecting unpolished wafers for subsurface defects, a
study was carried out to investigate the nature and existence

Zoom Lens
Mirror 4
CCD
Mirror 3 Camera
Mirror 1
Collimator
SF1
Mirror 2
TOP VIEW
SF2
He- Ne Laser
Wafer mount
Unpolished
Wafer
IR Lamp
FRONT VIEW
Figure 4. The experimental set-up of the wafer defect detection
system.
of COPs on the processed wafer surface. First the polished
wafers were inspected using a wafer inspection system, in
this case a KLA Tencor instrument. The processed wafers
were subsequently measured using a Wyko optical profiler
to study the defects quantitatively. Figure 5 shows a ‘swirl’
defect revealed after final polishing as seen by the KLA Tencor
instrument. These are micro-defects, located in a spiral pattern
in wafers cut perpendicular to the crystal growth direction. The
wafer defect map obtained by this instrument does not show
whether the defects are of class ‘A’ or ‘B’. The instrument
shows these defects in the form of black dots on the wafer map.
To classify these defects requires a high magnification scanning
electron microscope, which shows clearly the defects as in
figure 6 [11]. The A-swirl defect (the black–white contrasts)
are larger size defects much smaller in number whereas the
B-swirl defects (white dots) are a lot of small defects. Close
evaluation shows that the B-swirls are designated as shallow
Defect detection in unpolished Si wafers by digital shearography
Cluster Swirl
Defects
ϕ 200 mm
Figure 5. Typical ‘swirl’ defects in a polished Si wafer revealed by
a KLA Tencor instrument.
B-swirl
A-swirl
Figure 6. Types of swirl defects as seen by scanning electron
microscope.
pits (see inset figure) whereas the A-swirls are designated as
hillocks.
To characterize the defects on the wafer during the
reclamation processes, an optical profiler is used to measure
the surface defects generated either during the wafer processing
or during crystal growth or both. Figure 7 shows the results
of 2D and 3D surface topography measurements of a single
defect on the lapped Si wafer by an optical profiler. The
three-dimensional representation of the surface topography
provides a clear indication of size, depth and shape of the
defect. The defects are almost circular (or rectangular) in
shape at the surface and tapered down like a cup up to a
depth of about 205 nm as shown in figure 7. The diameter
of the defects varies from 5 to 10 µm. The depth and shape
of the defect change as the process changes from lapping
to fine polishing. Figure 8 shows the results of 2D and
3D surface topography measurement of a single defect on
the fine polished Si wafer. The defects are irregular (or
elliptical) in shape at the surface and taper down like cones
or pyramids to a depth of about 5 nm. The size (diameter)
39
G Udupa et al

Table 1. Surface topography parameters of processed Si wafers (measurement area: 225.7 µm × 296.7 µm).
Sl. Parameters/ Ra Rq Rz Rt Defect Defect
no processes (nm) (nm) (nm) (nm) diameter (µm) depth (nm)
1 Lapping 1.92 6.31 221.1 296.5 10–15 200
2 Etching 1.44 1.99 44.61 67.09 5–10 50
3 Stock polishing 1.10 1.32 8.10 11.84 2–8 10
4 Fine polishing 0.85 1.08 7.94 8.58 0.05–5 5

um nm um X Profile
14.6 54.41
-0.00
30.00 -0.02
12.0
10.00 -0.04
10.0 -0.06
-10.00
-0.08
8.0 -30.00 -0.10 Rq 56.93 nm
-50.00 -0.12 Ra 36.63 nm
6.0 -0.14 Rt 205.32 nm
-70.00
4.0 -90.00
-0.16 Rp 7.43 nm
-0.18 Rv -197.89 nm
2.0 -0.20 um
-127.86 0 10 20 30 40 50
0.0
um
0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 14.0 16.0 18.2

um Y Profile
nm
-0.00
54.4
-0.02
-0.04
-0.06
-0.08
-0.10 Rq 63.90 nm
14.6 Ra 45.88 nm
-0.12
-0.14 Rt 204.32 nm
-127.9 -0.16 Rp 8.31 nm
0.0 -0.18 Rv -196.01 nm
0.0 um
18.2 -0.20
um 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Figure 7. The 2D and 3D surface topography map of a single defect on the lapped Si wafer by a Wyko optical profiler indicating average
roughness (Ra ), RMS deviation (Rq ), peak to valley height (Rt ), maximum peak height (Rp ) and maximum valley depth (Rv ) of the surface
profile.

nm X Profile
0.94 nm
0.00
0

-1.00 -1
Rq 1.29 nm
-2.00 -2 Ra 1.03 nm
Rt 4.56 nm
-3 Rp 0.67 nm
-3.00
Rv -3.89 nm
-4 um
-3.86
0 2 4 6 8 10
nm
0.94
Y Profile
nm 0.00 nm
0.50
0.9
0.00
-1.00 -0.50
-1.00
-1.50
-2.00
-3.9 -2.00 Rq 1.24 nm
10.1 0 Ra 0.99 nm
-2.50
-3.00 -3.00 Rt 4.25 nm
0.0 9.0
Rp 0.36 nm
-3.50
um -3.86 Rv -3.89 nm um
-4.00
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Figure 8. The 2D and 3D surface topography map of a single defect on the polished Si wafer by a Wyko optical profiler indicating average
roughness (Ra ), RMS deviation (Rq ), peak to valley height (Rt ), maximum peak height (Rp ) and maximum valley depth (Rv ) of the surface
profile.
of the defects typically varies from 5 µm to 50 nm at the designated as average roughness (Ra ), RMS deviation (Rq ),
surface. Table 1 shows the surface topography parameters ten-point height (Rz ) and peak to valley height (Rt ) of the
of the processed Si wafers along with defect size during the surface under measurement. As the value of surface roughness
wafer processing stages. The optical profiler gives four surface parameters decreases, there is a considerable decrease in size
roughness parameters, indicative of the surface roughness and and depth of defects in the Si wafer from the lapping to fine

40

ϕ15
ϕ20
ϕ2
ϕ5
ϕ10
(a)
ϕ15
ϕ20
ϕ5
ϕ10
(c)
Figure 9. Demonstration of the measurement range (a) two bonded wafers with simulated subsurface defects, (b) contour map of a 2 mm
defect by a Wyko optical profiler, (c) fringe pattern showing four subsurface defects and (d) fringe pattern showing a 2 mm subsurface
defect.
polishing process. However, these defects affect the final
performance and decrease reliability and manufacturing yield
of semiconductor devices. Some of these defects or voids
may be originally embedded (during crystal growth) in the
silicon wafer and will be revealed at the surface after the
polishing process (as seen in figure 5) and result in rejection
of wafers at the end of the final process. The difficult task is
to detect these subsurface defects in unpolished Si wafers and
sort them into defective and non-defective wafers. This helps
not only in reducing scrap but also saving both the processing
and manpower costs associated with producing swirl free non-
defective wafers for IC packaging.
5.2. Study of subsurface defects in an unpolished Si wafer
Defects/flaws in silicon wafers induce strain concentrations on
the wafers. Shearography reveals these defects by translating
the defect-induced strain concentrations to anomalies in the
fringe patterns. An unpolished wafer of 200 mm diameter
and thickness about 700 µm was clamped along the edges in
a wafer mount, leaving 190 mm diameter exposure area for
laser illumination on one side of the wafer. Thermal loading
was applied using an infrared lamp was placed at its centre on
other side of the wafer as shown in figure 4. The temperature
gradient induces thermal stresses in the wafer. Either the
double exposure or the real-time method can be used to perform
the subtraction. The Image-Pro Plus software along with
image processing card was installed in a Pentium 4 computer
Defect detection in unpolished Si wafers by digital shearography
mm
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0 mm
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.4
(b)
ϕ2
(d)
and a program written using the Auto-Pro scripting facilities
available in the software to perform the above methods of
subtraction. The real-time subtraction was carried out using
the fixed reference frame method or the permanently refreshed
reference frame method [12]. A lateral shear of 10 mm was
used throughout the experiment.
The suitability of the measurement range for this
application can be demonstrated using two bonded wafers as
shown in figure 9(a). The two unpolished wafers of 200 mm
diameter were bonded at specific spots with various sizes using
a steel filled epoxy adhesive. The simulated defects substituted
between the two wafers vary in size from approximately 2
to 20 mm diameter. Figure 9(b) shows the contour map
of a defect with about 2 mm diameter seen using the low
magnification objective lens (2.5×) available in the optical
profiler. The diameter of the defects may change a little after
the bonding. The fringe pattern in figure 9(c) successfully
reveals the location of the four simulated subsurface defects of
size 5, 10, 15 and 20 mm as seen by the bull’s-eye anomaly in
the fringe pattern. In comparison with figure 9(a), the bull’s-
eye corresponds to the positions of the four simulated defects.
However the smallest simulated defect, of size 2 mm, was not
detected when viewing the whole wafer surface. An attempt
has been made to detect this defect by reducing the field of
view with the zoom lens. Figure 9(d) shows the detection of
the smallest defect, which shows the position correctly at the
centre of the wafer. Similar experiments were also conducted
in detecting debonds between two bonded wafers. The present
41
G Udupa et al
Defects
(a)
(b)
Figure 10. (a) The subsurface defects in an unpolished Si wafer and
(b) the good unpolished Si wafer.
application needs to detect defects within the range of the
thickness of the wafer. This proves that the technique is able
to detect the subsurface defects present 700 µm below the
surface, which is of interest in this application. The minimum
size of the subsurface defect that can be detected in a wafer is
difficult to say precisely as it depends on several factors such as
the shearing amount, the type of the defect, the type of loading
and its condition, and the size of the field of viewing. However,
the study of swirl defects or pits discussed above reveals that
the size of the subsurface defect in an unpolished Si wafer is
normally about 10 µm. Defects larger than 10 µm may be
present either individually or in the form of cluster defects as
seen in figure 5. The cluster defect is a series of swirl defects
grouped together to form a bigger defect. The defects in the
outer ring in figure 5 may be considered as a group of cluster
swirl defects as it forms a thick ring about 20 mm wide. In this
case it is easy to detect the defects by digital shearography or
holography techniques. It is observed that not all the measured
wafers are of this type. The defect distribution inside the wafer
varies from circular pattern to a random distribution of swirl
defects from few hundred to few thousand particles or pits.
42
Cluster Swirl
Defects
Area
1000
100
100
Count
mm2
50
10
1
0.2 0.5 1 2 5 10 20 50 100 500 2000
0.160 9900
Diameter (µm)
Figure 11. The surface defects map after polishing the wafer of
figure 10(a), revealed by a KLA Tencor instrument with a graph
showing defect particle count and the corresponding defect size.
Figure 10(a) shows a typical fringe anomaly pattern for the
subsurface wafer defects. The pattern may vary depending on
the distribution of COPs inside the wafer. Typical flaw/defect
indications depicted in fringe patterns are: (a) bull’s-eyes,
(b) abrupt curvature changes, (c) abrupt fringe density changes
and (d) fringe discontinuity. However in figure 10(b), for non-
defective (good) wafers, the fringe patterns show lines of equal
out-of-plane derivative of displacement due to loading and
there is no abrupt change of curvature and/or discontinuity
of fringes. The results are repetitive, and it shows that the
technique is capable of differentiating the ‘good’ wafers from
‘defective’ wafers before the wafer reclamation or fabrication
processes. The defective unpolished wafer of figure 10(a) has
been sent for polishing to verify the presence of subsurface
defects. After the polishing process, the wafer was inspected
using a KLA Tencor instrument for surface defects. The defect
map obtained on the final polished silicon wafer shows defect
sizes varying from sub-micrometre to hundreds and thousands
of micrometres (up to about 10 mm), as shown in figure 11. The
instrument counts the number of particles on the wafer surface
based on its size and plots it on a graph showing particle count
and the corresponding size, as in figure 11.
The technique detects the bigger defect particles or voids
(cluster defects) present inside the wafer in the form of the
bull’s-eye as seen in figure 10(a). However the detection of
smaller (tens of micron) individual defect particles could not
be revealed; this may need a higher macro focus zoom lens to
perform serial measurement on a smaller area or the use of a
lower wavelength light source. Since the location of defects
in the wafer thickness direction is not known, it is difficult to
compare the defects in figure 10(a) with the mapped defects of
figure 11. Further work is needed to quantify the results using
the phase shifting method.

6. Conclusions
A wafer defect detection system for detecting subsurface
defects in an unpolished silicon wafer has been investigated
based on digital shearography. In the present work, swirl
defects (cluster defects) and groups of particles can be detected
qualitatively by whole field measurement of the wafer surface
in few seconds. The cluster defects and COPs are detected by
thermally stressing the wafer while looking for defect-induced
anomalies in the fringe pattern. Preliminary tests show that
about 95% of the results (in a batch of 100 unpolished wafers)
obtained by the system are in agreement with the results
obtained by the Tencor instrument in terms of detecting cluster
swirl defects or particles. Since the depths of the subsurface
defects are unknown, its difficult to compare the results with
the surface defect results obtained after processing the wafer.
However, the results obtained are repetitive and hence useful
to sort defective and non-defective unpolished wafers. The
study of surface defects on processed wafers show that most
of the defects in nature are pits or voids and the minimum size
of an individual defect in an unpolished wafer is about 10 µm.
The system can detect cluster swirl defects of size at least
5 mm when viewing the whole wafer surface. By reducing
the size of field of view, the working distance and controlling
the other parameters such as amount of shear, stable loading
conditions etc, the system could be able to detect defect sizes
of a hundred to a few hundred micrometres. To evaluate the
size of the subsurface defect needs correct identification of its
location and depth in the thickness direction. To investigate the
detection of micro-size defects in the wafer needs improvement
in the performance of the system. Future improvements to
the system include replacing the available zoom lens with a
long working distance microscope to inspect a field of view
of 1 mm or less. The disadvantage in this case is that it takes
more time to inspect the whole wafer surface and may require a
local stressing at the point of measurement in order to register
any underlying defects. Also a scanning stage is required to
scan the wafer when viewing a small area on the surface. If
the subsurface defects are greater in number, the detection
and identification of individual defects becomes more difficult
and complex. It is observed that some of the wafers are
transparent to IR radiation causing difficulty in measurement.
Other loading methods such as vacuum or pressure are being
developed to avoid such problems and to get a more uniform
loading condition. A higher pixel resolution camera may be
incorporated for increased image definition. Further work is
being carried out to determine quantitatively the depth and
Defect detection in unpolished Si wafers by digital shearography
size of the defects using a phase shifting technique to make
this system suitable for in situ inspection on the factory floor.
This will enhance the system’s capability greatly by providing
critical information and further assisting in determining ‘good’
wafers from ‘defective’ wafers before wafer reclamation or
fabrication processes.
Acknowledgments
This research work was supported by the Economic De-
velopment Board, Singapore (Grant No COY-15-IDS/I122-
1S99/50890) in collaboration with International Semiconduc-
tors Products (ISP) Pte. Ltd, Singapore. Authors would like
to thank Dr Usha of ISP for her help in the experimental work.
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