In digital circuits, materials with low permittivity separate the conducting parts from one another; materials with lower permittivity provide better electrical and magnetic insulation. Continuous reduction in scale drives the optimization problem of lowering the permittivity of the insulator as much as possible, without compromising mechanical integrity, as quantified by the Young’s modulus. (The dielectric constant, k, is a dimensionless expression of permittivity, having been normalized by vacuum permittivity.)

This session is a live demonstration of the nanoindentation technique for measuring the Young’s modulus of a blanket low-k film on silicon using the KLA iNano platform. Ms. Hay demonstrates sample preparation, instrument configuration, test specification, and data interpretation, including proper accounting of substrate influence.