Local stress measurement is becoming very important to evaluate electrical and reliability property of semiconductor. Raman spectroscopic method has been established to measure local stress at the area of one micron in diameter. The measurement problems came from the characteristics of a spectrometer have been solved by the following.

–Ar Plasma line is utilized to calibrate wave numbers.

–Gaussian and Lorentz distribution are utilized to determine the peaks of Plasma line and RAMAN shift.

This method with introduction of a certain assumption can be applied to the stress measurement not only for Silicon single crystal like trench structure, but for deposited thin layers like silicon oxide or silicon nitride, and plastic packaging material.

This paper describes the measurement methods of local stress, data processing techniques of measurement data and several examples of the measurement on a semiconductor thin layer and packaging plastic.