Alpha-Step D500 Stylus Profiler | 2D Step Height Measurement

Alpha-Step^? D-500 Stylus Profiler

The Alpha-Step D-500 stylus profiler is capable of 2D step height measurement from a few nanometers up to 1200?m. The D-500 also supports 2D measurements of roughness, bow and stress for R&D and production environments. The D-500 stylus profilometer includes a manual 140mm stage and advanced optics with enhanced video controls.

Product Description

The Alpha-Step D-500 stylus profiler supports 2D measurements of step height, roughness, bow and stress. The innovative optical lever sensor technology offers high resolution measurements, large vertical range and low force measurement capability.

An advantage of the profilometer’s stylus measurement technique is that it is a direct measurement, independent of material properties. Adjustable force and choice of stylus enable accurate measurements of a wide variety of structures and materials. This enables quantification of your process to determine the amount of material added or removed, plus any changes in structure by measuring roughness and stress.

Designed for universities, research labs and institutes, the Alpha-Step provides step height, roughness, and stress metrology for semiconductor and compound semiconductor devices, LEDs, solar, MEMS, automotive and medical devices.

Features

Step Height Measurement: Nanometers to 1200?m
Low Force: 0.03 to 15mg
Video: 5MP high-resolution color camera
Keystone Correction: Removes distortion due to side view optics
Arc Correction: Removes error due to arc motion of the stylus
Compact Size: Smallest system footprint for a benchtop stylus profiler
Software: User friendly software interface

Applications

Step Height Measurement: 2D step height
Texture: 2D roughness and waviness
Form: 2D bow and shape
Stress: 2D thin film stress

Industries

Universities, research labs and institutes
Semiconductor and compound semiconductor
LED: Light emitting diodes
Solar
MEMS: Micro-electro-mechanical systems
Automotive
Medical devices
And more: Contact us with your requirements

The options for the Alpha-Step^? D-500 Stylus Profiler are available to add on with your new product, or in the future. Contact your sales rep to learn more.

Stylus Options

The Alpha-Step D-500 has a variety of styli available to support the measurement of step heights, high aspect ratio steps, roughness, sample bow, and stress. The tip radius ranges from 100nm to 50?m and determines the lateral resolution of the measurement. The included angle ranges from 20 to 100 degrees, which specifies the maximum aspect ratio of the measured feature. All styli are manufactured from diamond to reduce wear and increase stylus lifetime.

Sample Chucks

The Alpha-Step D-500 has a range of chucks available to support application requirements. The standard chuck is a nickel-plated aluminum chuck for samples up to 140mm. A flat black chuck is available for transparent samples to minimize reflection from the chuck surface. A universal vacuum chuck is also offered and includes precision locating pins for samples from 50mm to 125mm. Both the standard and universal chucks support stress measurements with 3-point locators to hold the sample in a neutral position for accurate bow measurements.

Isolation Tables

The Alpha-Step D-500 has both tabletop and free-standing isolation table options. The Granite Isolator^? Series offers tabletop isolation systems that combine granite with high grade silicone gel to provide passive isolation. The Onyx Series tabletop isolation systems use pneumatic air isolators to provide passive isolation. The TMC 63-500 Series isolation table is a free-standing steel frame table that uses pneumatic air isolators to provide passive isolation.

Step Height Standards

The Alpha-Step D-500 uses thin and thick film NIST traceable step height standards offered by VLSI Standards. The standards feature an oxide step on a silicon die mounted on a quartz block. A step height range of 8nm to 250?m is available.

Apex Analysis Software

Apex analysis software enhances the standard data analysis capability of the D-500 with an extended suite of leveling, filtering, step height, roughness, and surface topography analysis techniques. Apex supports ISO roughness calculation methods, plus local standards such as ASME. Apex can also serve as a report writing platform with the capability to add text, annotations, and pass/fail criteria. Apex is offered in eleven languages.

Offline Analysis Software

The Alpha-Step D-500 offline software has the same data analysis capability that exists on the tool. This enables the user to analyze data without using valuable tool time.

General Information about Stylus-based Surface Profilers from 乱伦社区 Instruments^?

This application note discusses components and technologies specific to the 乱伦社区 Instruments stylus profilers, including topography measurement, force control, scanning mechanism, stylus types and dimensions, and stylus profilometry applications.

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Multi-Step Analysis Function: Powerful Analytics from 乱伦社区 Instruments^? Surface Profilers

Multi-Step Analysis is a new automated algorithm that automatically measures step height/trench depth for up to 30 features along a scan profile, including automatic cursor placement. This capability significantly improves time-to-results and removes measurement variability relative to previous manual methods.

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Topography Sensor Technology for Stylus Profilers

The topography sensor is one component of the stylus measurement head, which is used to track the surface of the sample being measured. Three major sensor types are LVDT, Optical Lever and LVDC, and this application note discusses the design of each.

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Precision Depth Measurement of Shallow SIMS Craters using a 乱伦社区 Instruments^? Stylus Profilometer

The depth of SIMS craters generated by ion beam milling is used to determine the concentration of impurities. The objective of this application note is to present a technique to accurately measure the depth of shallow SIMS craters using a stylus profiler.

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Stylus Product Line

乱伦社区 Instruments^? stylus profilometers may be used with different styli to optimize measurements for specific applications. The 乱伦社区 profilers, including the Alpha-Step^? D-Series, Tencor^? P-Series and High Resolution Profiler (HRP^?) Series all use the same stylus design. This application note discusses the various types of styli available for these stylus profilometers and typical applications for their use.

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Apex Software

Stylus profilers from 乱伦社区 Instruments are available with advanced 2D/3D surface analysis software to provide additional insight into profilometer measurement data. The Apex software includes data processing, analysis, visualization and reporting capabilities for both 2D profiles and 3D topography.

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