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We have surveyed 22,155 analyses issues to know the portion of surface analysis at the total analyses activities. According to the survey result, the contribution of SIMS in the total analyses issues was about 7%. The portions of semiconductor process control, composition and contamination in the SIMS analyses issues are 25%, 29% and 16%, respectively. In this article, some examples of the semiconductor device process control, identification of contaminants, and failure analyses have been reviewed. The behavior of H, O, and Ti at the Pt/Ti/GaInZnO interfaces and their influences on the electrical property of thin film transistor are demonstrated. Also discolor issues including organic material contamination problem on Au pad are discussed in detail.

An international round-robin study was undertaken under the auspices of ISO TC201/SC6 to determine the best analytical conditions and the level of interlaboratory agreement for the determination of the implantation dose of arsenic in silicon by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). Fifteen SIMS laboratories, as well as two laboratories that performed low energy electron-induced X-ray emission spectrometry (LEXES) and one that made measurements by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) were asked to determine the implanted arsenic doses in three unknown samples using as a comparator NIST Standard Reference Material® 2134. The use of a common reference material by all laboratories resulted in better interlaboratory agreement than was seen in a previous round-robin that lacked a common comparator. The relative standard deviation among laboratories was less than 4% for the medium-dose sample, but several percent larger for the low- and high-dose samples. The high-dose sample showed a significant difference between point-by-point and average matrix normalization because the matrix signal decreased in the vicinity of the implant peak, as observed in a previous study. The dose from point-by-point normalization was in close agreement with that determined by INAA. No clear difference in measurement repeatability was seen when comparing Si2− and Si3− as matrix references with AsSi−.

SIMS with low energy (down to 250 eV) primary ions has been widely used for ultra-shallow dopant profiling for ULSI device development. In spite of its high performance in depth resolution, there still remain ambiguities to be overcome in SIMS technique for accurate depth and concentration calibrations in the shallow depth regions. In order to get accurate ultra-shallow boron depth profiles, BN-delta-doped multilayer reference materials were developed and evaluated in a round-robin study using low energy SIMS. Those delta-doped layers were used to measure the sputter rate change in the initial stage of oxygen–ion bombardment.