The ESEM - The Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope

Short overview about the

ESEM
Environmental Scanning
Electron Microscope

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Krisada Kimseng / Marcel Meissel

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The ESEM - The Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope

ESEM
Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope

What is an ESEM and how does it work ?

Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEM) began to appear commercially in the mid nineteen
sixties. The SEMs primary limitations, as a general imaging and analytical technique,
were the restrictions it imposed on samples by requiring a high vacuum sample environment. The samples had to be clean, dry and electrically conductive. Nonconductive
specimen had to be coated with a conductive film to avoid specimen charging.
The ESEM was developed in the mid eighties. Its primary advantages lie in permitting the
microscopist to vary the sample environment through a range of pressures, temperatures
and gas compositions. The Environmental SEM retains all of the performance advantages
of a conventional SEM, but removes the high vacuum constraint on the sample environment. Wet, oily, dirty, non-conductive samples may be examined in their natural state
without modification or preparation. The ESEM offers high resolution secondary electron
imaging in a gaseous environment of practically any composition, at pressures as high as
50 Torr, and temperatures as high as 1500 C.
All SEMs consist of an electron column, that creates a beam of electrons; a sample
chamber, where the electron beam interacts with the sample; detectors, that monitor a variety of signals resulting from the beam-sample interaction; and a viewing system, that
constructs an image from the signal.

Figure 1.
A schematic representation
of a SEM. The electron column accelerates and focuses
a beam of electrons onto the
sample surface. Interactions
between the sample and the
beam electrons cause a variety of signal emissions.
The signals are detected and
reconstructed into a virtual
image displayed on a CRT.

An electron gun at the top

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The ESEM - The Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope

of the column generates the electron beam. In the gun, an electrostatic field directs electrons, emitted from a very small region on the surface of an electrode, through a small
spot called the crossover. The gun then accelerates the electrons down the column toward
the sample with energies typically ranging from a few hundred to tens of thousands of
electron volts.
The electrons emerge from the gun as a divergent beam. A series of magnetic lenses and
apertures in the column reconverges and focuses the beam into a demagnified image of
the crossover. Near the bottom of the column a set of scan coils deflects the beam in a
scanning pattern over the sample surface. The final lens focuses the beam into the smallest possible spot on the sample surface.
The beam exits from the column into the sample chamber. The chamber incorporates a
stage for manipulating the sample, a door for inserting and removing the sample and access ports for mounting various signal detectors and other accessories. As the beam electrons penetrate the sample, they give up energy, which is emitted from the sample in a
variety of ways. There are two major ways of emission:
Secondary Electrons (SE) are sample atom electrons that have been ejected by interactions with the primary electrons of the beam. They generally have very low energy (by
convention less than fifty electron volts). Because of their low energy they can escape
only from a very shallow region at the sample surface. As a result they offer the best imaging resolution. Contrast in a secondary electron image comes primarily from sample
topography. More of the volume of interaction is close to the sample surface, and therefore more secondary electrons can escape, for a point at the top of a peak than for a point
at the bottom of a valley. Peaks are bright. Valleys are dark. This makes the interpretation
of secondary images very intuitive. They look just like the corresponding visual image
would look.
Backscattered Electrons (BSE) are primarily beam electrons that have been scattered back
out of the sample by elastic collisions with the nuclei of sample atoms. They have high
energy, ranging (by convention) from fifty electron volts up to the accelerating voltage of
the beam. Their higher energy results in a larger specific volume of interaction and degrades the resolution of backscattered electron images. Contrast in backscattered images
comes primarily from point to point differences in the average atomic number of the
sample. High atomic number nuclei backscatter more electrons and create bright areas in
the image. Backscattered images are not as easy to interpret, but properly interpreted, can
provide important information about sample composition.
Each emission mode is potentially a signal from which to create an image.

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The ESEM - The Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope

Figure 2.
The interactions of beam electrons and
sample atoms generate a variety of signals. The most commonly used signals
are secondary electrons, backscattered
electrons and characteristic X-rays.

What is the new technology in ESEM ?

High vacuum conditions are required in the electron gas and throughout the column,
where gas molecules can scatter electrons and degrade the beam. Instead of using a single
pressure limiting aperture in conventional SEM, ESEM uses multiple Pressure Limiting
Apertures (PLAs) to separate the sample chamber from the column. The column is still
high vacuum, but the chamber may sustain pressures as high as 50 Torr.

Figure 3.
In the ESEM the vacuum system is divided into as many as five stages of increasing vacuum, separated by pressure
limiting apertures. In this schematic the
stages are the sample chamber, first environmental chamber (EC1), second environmental chamber (EC2), column and
gun chamber.

ESEM uses a proprietary Environ-

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The ESEM - The Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope

mental Secondary Detector (ESD) which can function in non-vacuum environment instead of Everhart-Thornley (ET) detector used in SEM
The ESD uses the principle of gas ionization. By applying a positive potential of a few
hundred volts to the detector, the secondary electron emitted by the sample when interacts
with electron beam is attracted to detector. As the electrons accelerate in the detector
field, they collide with gas molecules. The resulting ionizations create additional electrons, amplifying original secondary electron signal, and positive ions. The detector collects secondary electron signal and passes it directly to an electron amplifier. In nonconductive samples the positive ions created in gas ionization process are attracted to the
sample surface and they effectively suppress charging artifacts.

Figure 4.
The Environmental Secondary Detector uses
gas ionization to amplify the secondary electron signal. In nonconductive samples, positive ions are attached to the sample surface
as charge accumulates from the beam. There
they effectively suppress charging artifacts.

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The ESEM - The Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope

What can ESEM do ?

Gas ionization in the sample chamber eliminates the charging artifacts, typically seen
with nonconductive samples. So the specimens do not need to be coated with a conductive film. ESEM gets rid of the preparation process.
The ESEM can image wet, dirty and oily samples. The contaminants do not damage
the or degrade the image quality.
ESEM can acquire electron images from samples as hot as 1500C, because the
Environmental Secondary Detector (ESD) is insensitive to heat.
The detector is also insensitive to light. Light from the sample, for example incandescence from heated samples, cathodoluminescence and fluorescence do not interfere
with imaging.
ESEM eliminates the need for conductive coating, so delicate structure, which was
often damaged during the sample preparation, can be imaged.
ESEM can acquire x-ray data from insulating samples at high accelerating voltage.
Eliminating the need for sample preparation, particularly the need for conductive
coating, makes it possible to investigate specimen in dynamic processes, such as tension, compression, deformation, crack propagation, adhesion, heating, cooling, freezing, melting, hydration, dehydration and sublimation.

The concerns of using ESEM in PEMs

The condition of the ball bond. (Intermetallic growth and corrosion).
The condition of the die (short-circuits caused by intermetallic growth and corrosion).
The condition of the interface after cross section between each component of the
PEM. (Delamination or crack).

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The ESEM - The Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope

How to operate the ESEM ?

For simple examination of PEMs, for example, the PEMs have to be decapsulated before
using the ESEM to examine for cracking in the passivation layer, dendrite growth on the
die surface, fatigue damage of the bond wires and corrosion of the metallization on the
surface of the die. For this examination, ESEM users can follow this instruction.

Chamber

Window
Stage
Pressure control

Figure 5.
ESEM chamber and stage.

Image screen
Control screen
Control panel
Polaroid camera

Figure 6.
ESEM control panel
and monitors.

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The ESEM - The Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope

1) Heating filament
If you put your name on the schedule the day before or if anyone used the ESEM before you, the ESEM is normally already turned on and the filament is heated. If not,
go to the gun menu and click heat filament (1.86 A). It can take up to several minutes to heated it up.
2) Placing the sample on the stage
Before you can put your sample in, you will have to vent the chamber. To do so, go to
the vacuum menu and hit vent chamber. After the chamber is vented you can open
the door and put your sample into the sample holder. When you put your sample in,
close the door and hit wet in the vacuum menu. If the wet button is not accessible, press the override button. Make sure the door is closed by pressing it softly
against the chamber. Remember to wet the chamber when you finished all your
tests.
3) Adjust pressure
Use the knob on the left board to adjust the pressure to 2.0 Torr. Wait till pressure in
chamber has reached the adjusted value. (Actual pressure shown at the bottom of the
image screen.)
4) Adjust position of sample
Adjust the position of the sample by using the X-Y position stick on the control panel
and adjust Z-position until the distance between the sample and the beam header is
about 5-10 mm.
5) Adjust condenser
Adjust the condenser value to about 50. (On the static section of the screen)
6) Adjust beam
Adjust the beam value to about 25 keV. (On the static section of the screen)
7) Adjust scan rate
A lower scan rate produces sharper images. Use high scan rates for searching a sample or when moving the stage with higher speed. Different scan rates can be chosen
within the range of 8.6 fr/sec to 26 sec/fr.
8) Adjust brightness and contrast
Use contrast and brightness knob to adjust for the best figure. The three knobs on the
top of the electron column can be used to adjust the best position of the electron beam
on the specimen.
9) Locate die
Begin with lowest magnification to locate the position of the die you would like to
examine.

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The ESEM - The Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope

10) Focus image

Press the focus button on the panel, choose higher magnification and focus image
with the focus knob on the panel. When the image is sharp, release focus button.
11) Check alignment of the image
You can rotate the image by clicking on the cw or ccw button in the image menu.
12) Measuring
To measure the specimen use the annotation button in the image menu. The image has
to be aligned. You can only measure horizontal distances. Click on the white boxes on
the image screen and move them to the part you want to measure. The shown distance
is the distance between the two white dots. A higher magnification is more precisely.
13)Taking pictures
First adjust the focus, adjust the scan rate to 26 sec/frame and after the picture is
scanned completely, press the hold button. To take a picture with the video printer
press the print button on the front panel of the video printer. To take a Polaroid picture, go to the record menu, choose your type of film, insert the film into the holder
and pull it till it stops and click the photo button. Wait till the light of the photo button
comes off. Push the film back in, lock the film holder and pull the whole film out. To
continue scanning push the live button first. (On the static section of the screen.)

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The ESEM - The Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope

Conclusion
The ESEM has several advantages towards SEM. For example the samples do not have to
be prepared and the chamber environment can be controlled through a range of pressure,
temperature and gas composition. The following examples show some failure analysis on
PEMs.
By using ESEM to examine decapsulated PEM, ball bonds of some packages showed
intermetallic growth between ball bond and bond pad as seen in Figure 6.

After cross sectioning the interface between each components can be examined by
using ESEM, delamination and crevice can be seen in Figure 7 and Figure 8.

Ball bond
Bond pad

Figure 7.
Good ball bond (good
shape, no intermetallic
growth and corrosion).

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The ESEM - The Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope

Ball bond
Bond pad
Intermetallic growth

Figure 8.
Bad ball bond (intermetallic growth between ball
bond and bond pad).

Ball bond
Crevice
Bond pad

Figure 9.

Bad interface. (Crevice between Ball Bond and Die

Pad)

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The ESEM - The Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope

Die
Delamination
Die paddle

Figure 10.

Bad interface (Delamination between Die and Die

Paddle)

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