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Thickness Gauge Measurement With Conductive Wafers and Thin Films
Description
Using MTI’s capacitive thickness gauge Proforma 300i with conductive wafers and thin films
G = (a+b+t1+t2 ) Where G is the fixed gap between two probes
When making the thickness measurement t2 can appear as t2 (film thickness) when it is a conductor, or 0 thickness when t2 is just air. So t2 will vary between the actual film thickness t2 if it’s a conductor all the way down to 0 thickness if the film has a dielectric constant of 1 (same as air). Some aero gel films have dielectric constants close to 1.
Apparent thickness of t2 to the system = t2 (1-*1/k) where k is the dielectric constant of the system
| Film Medium | Dielectric k | t2 Apparent Thickness |
| Air | 1 | = 0 |
| Dielectric | 2 | =0.5*t2 |
| Dielectric | 5 | =0.8*t2 |
| Metal or Si | Infinity | = t2 |
Example Use Case Scenarios with various dielectric constants:
Assuming ProForma 300i is calibrated with a 1 mm Si wafer with no film:
- If we were to insert a 1 mm wafer with a 10 um film that had a dielectric constant of 2 then the wafer would measure as 1.005 mm thick.
- If we inserted a 1 mm wafer with a 10 um film that had a dielectric constant of 5 then the PF300i would read 1.008 mm thick.
