Thermal Conductivity Case Studies Using SSTR

Laser Thermal Case Studies Using SSTR

Thermal Boundary Resistance and Why it Matters

In this blog, we provide an overview of thermal boundary resistance, why understanding it is critical when engineering semiconductor devices, and some critical challenges for interfacial thermal metrology. What is thermal boundary resistance? Thermal boundary resistance is simply a measure of resistance to heat flow at the interface between two materials. It is also commonly...

Wide Bandgap Semiconductors: Thermal Metrology Challenges

A summary of some of the biggest trends for the semiconductor industry heading into 2023.

Semiconductor Trends for 2023: Thin Film Integrated Circuits and Beyond

A summary of some of the biggest trends for the semiconductor industry heading into 2023.

Thermoreflectance Imaging: Key Applications

Traditional thermal metrology techniques cannot be relied upon to generate reliable thermal resistance data for thin film materials.

Key Concerns for Semiconductor Test Data Analysis

Traditional thermal metrology techniques cannot be relied upon to generate reliable thermal resistance data for thin film materials.

Thin Film Solar Cells: How Improved Thermal Metrology Can Help Drive Continued Efficiency Improvements

Semiconductor devices often operate under sustained thermal stresses. Understanding the thermal resistances of the materials used in these devices is essential to mitigate thermal failure and maximize performance, reliability, and manufacturing yield.

Thin Film Thermal Conductivity and Its Implications for Electronic Devices

Why Enhanced Thermal Resistance Measurement is Vital for Reducing Thermal Failure

Why Your Semiconductor Testing Process Must Employ Thermal Resistance Measurements

Our world runs on semiconductors, and chip manufacturers are always looking for improvements that can help deliver higher yield and lower costs in the fabrication process. In this blog, we examine the semiconductor testing process, how it works, and why it’s particularly critical for this industry.

What is Thermal Conductivity ?

Thermal conductivity is a form of heat transfer with vital implications for material performance in applications ranging from electronic devices, to manufacturing, to transportation, to even the design of coffee cups. In this blog, we explain what thermal conductivity is, and what differentiates it from other forms of heat transfer.

Thermal conductivity of nanoscale thin films

SSTR is ideal for your thin film thermal conductivity testing needs.
In addition to measurements of bulk wafers and substrates (source 1, source 2), SSTR has the unprecedented spatial resolution to measure the thermal conductivity of thin films.
For example, SSTR can measure the thermal conductivity of single nanometer thick ALD grown thin films or micron thick AlN films (source).

SSTR measurements on ALD grown ultrathin film amorphous gate dielectrics (compared to TDTR) (source).

SSTR measurements of AlN crystalline thin films.2 SSTR data (temperature rise vs. power) on right for AlN film and silicon wafer control.

Unparalleled reliability

Thermal conductivity measurements: Accuracy +/- 10%, Repeatability +/- 0.5%, Reproducibility +/- 1%
Accurate thermal conductivity measurements of materials in agreement with literature values
With exceptional instrumentation reliability and repeatability, SSTR-F offers unprecedented measurement stability on a daily basis for any user, exemplified by the SSTR-F data shown below. Spread in randomly sampled spots are sample related, not measurement driven.

Source

20 SSTR-F measurements at same spot

20 SSTR-F measurements at random spots

Turnkey testing

Our patented fiber-optic design enables turnkey, automated testing of thermal conductivity.
High-throughput SSTR-F testing of multiple samples facilitates, for example, screening the thermal conductivity of different thin films processed under different conditions
Defects, stresses, compositional differences, and changes in density and microstructure that occur up during film growth result in changes in thermal conductivity, easily and rapidly identified vis SSTR-F

SSTR-F data on 4 different 200 nm dielectric films on silicon with thermal conductivity ranging from ~0.35 W/m/K up to 1.8 W/m/K. SSTR-F allows for easy, rapid and automated identification of different temperature rises based on the thermal conductivity of the different films.

	Literature Value	TPS Measurement	SSTR-F Measurement
Pyroceram 9606	4.07 +/- .26	3.95	3.95 +/- 0.2
HPFS 7980	1.38	1.39	1.39 +/- 0.09