In an effort to expand the understanding of the mechanical properties of the polymeric interphase on a metal surface, a composite consisting of epoxy and copper was prepared and analyzed. Scanning force microscopy-based force modulation microscopy (SFM-FMM) was employed along with dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX). Diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA)-based epoxy resins were applied with amine curing agents. The samples were made taking advantage of electron beam lithography (EBL) in order to produce sharp edges of copper structures and a flat surface suitable for the SFM-FMM analysis, which was able to depict the stiffness within the interphase. It is considered significant information because the mechanical characteristic within the narrow interphase was revealed. Comparing with DMA and EDX, the stiffness information of SFM-FMM demonstrated a matching correlation and agreement in terms of preferential adsorption of the curing agent in the vicinity of the interface. The stiffness profiles of the two epoxy systems turned out to be different, and it shows the material dependence of the interphase characteristics.

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In this paper, we present a methodology for simulating the impact of wafer-level (within-wafer) and die-level (within-die) variation on circuit performance. For a sample 0.25pm 64x8 SRAM layout, the impact of both die-level and wafer-level poly-CD variation as measured through signal skew and delay is shown to be significant.

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