3D Measurement of TSVs Using Low Numerical Aperture White-Light Scanning Interferometry

We have proposed and demonstrated a low numerical aperture technique to measure the depth of through silicon vias (TSVs) using white-light scanning interferometry. The high aspect ratio hole like TSV's was considered to be impossible to measure using conventional optical methods due to low visibility at the bottom of the hole. We assumed that the limitation of the measurement was caused by reflection attenuation in TSVs. A novel interference theory which takes the structural reflection attenuation into consideration was proposed and simulated. As a result, we figured out that the low visibility in the interference signal was caused by the unbalanced light intensity between the object and the reference mirror. Unbalanced light can be balanced using an aperture at the illumination optics. As a result of simulation and experiment, we figured out that the interference signal can be enhanced using the proposed technique. With the proposed optics, the depth of TSVs having an aspect ratio of 11.2 was measured in 5 seconds. The proposed method is expected to be an alternative method for 3-D inspection of TSVs.