Ellipsometric porosimetry (EP) has recently appeared to be a suitable non‐destructive technique for the characterization of porous ultra low‐κ (ULK) dielectrics. The analysis of ellipsometric spectra of a film during adsorption and desorption cycles of an adsorptive, allows the determination of its open pore fraction, pore size distribution, refractive index and thickness. Several issues are encountered when integrating low‐κ materials as inter‐metal dielectrics (IMD) in the CMOS architecture such as the deposition monitoring, the pore sealing efficiency and the process induced damages. In this study we focus on the capabilities of EP to characterize ULK materials and their integration processes.

Of several new materials in clean rooms, the monitoring of trace metallic contamination is a real and present need. It is well known [1][2][3] that these impurities are detrimental to the efficiency of the microelectronics devices: they could cause crystal defects, act as electron traps, degrade minority carrier lifetime or increase the leakage current. Concerning the noble metallic contaminants (Au, Pt, Ir, Ru, Ag and Pd), now used in microelectronics to improve devices performances, their surface contamination control at low level (< 10¹⁰ at.cm^-2) remains a great challenge.