Applications of Calibration Comparison

in On-Wafer Measurement

Uwe Arz1
Dylan F. Williams2

1Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Braunschweig, Germany

2National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO, USA
Introduction

Outline
Introduction
Applications
- VNA test-set drift
- Substrate permittivity compensation
- Characteristic impedance measurement
- 4-port calibration
Summary and conclusions
2
Introduction

2-tier deembedding

VNA
coaxial cal. on-wafer cal.
(1st tier) (2nd tier)

a b b a

port 1 port 2
error box error box

3
Introduction

Calibration comparison method

a a b b

TRL reference cal. Working calibration

(1st tier) (2nd tier)
4
Introduction

Analysis of two-port error boxes yields

changes in reference plane position
changes in reference impedance
upper bound on |Sij - Sij | " i,j ; with Sij , Sij being
S-parameters of any passive device measured
by benchmark and working cal., respectively.

(Williams/Marks/Davidson, 38th ARFTG Conference, Dec. 1991)

5
VNA test-set drift and connector
repeatability

Calibrations performed with identical artifacts

0.04

7 hours delay
2 hours delay
0.5 hours delay
- Sij

0.03
n
m
Upper bound for Sij

0.02

0.01

0
10 20 30 40
6
Frequency (GHz)
 Influence of substrate permittivity
and compensation

Identical TRL cal sets on different substrates

G G G G
S Thru S Thru S Thru S Thru
G G G G

Re fle ct Re fle ct Re fle ct Re fle ct

Line Line Line Line

GaAs Lanthanum Silica Sapphire

Aluminate
benchmark cal working cals
7
 Influence of substrate permittivity
and compensation
Worst-case differences before compensation
0.25
lanthanum aluminate
fused silica
sapphire
0.20 repeatability error
Upper bound for Sij' - Sij

0.15

0.10

0.05

0
0 10 20 30 40
8
Frequency (GHz)
 Influence of substrate permittivity
and compensation
Worst-case differences after compensation
0.06

lanthanum aluminate
0.05 fused silica
sapphire Model of transition
repeatability error
Upper bound for Sij' - Sij

to CPW
0.04

0.03

0.02

0.01

0
0 10 20 30 40
Frequency (GHz)

(Williams/Marks/Davidson, 44th ARFTG Conference, Dec. 1994) 9

 Measurement of Z0 on silicon

second step
CMOS TEST STRUCTURES

reference plane of 2nd-tier-Multiline-TRL

calibration on silicon substrate

reference impedance: Z0

first step
calibration
CPW CALSET comparison
reference plane of 1st-tier-Multiline-TRL
calibration on GaAs substrate (CPW standards)

reference impedance: set to Zr = 50 $

(Arz/Williams/Grabinski, 2nd IEEE Workshop on Signal Propagation on Interconnects, May 1998) 10
 Measurement of Z0 on silicon
Z0 of 1 m wide CMOS lines
1000 0

800 -10
arg(Z0)
600 -20
| Z 0 | ( )

arg(Z0)
Calculation (metal 5)
Calculation (metal 2)
400 Measurement (metal 2) -30
Measurement (metal 5)

| Z0 |
200 -40

0 -50
0 10 20 30 40
Frequency (GHz) 11
 4-port measurement setup

Port 1 Port 2
ANA

50
N

50 W E
50

S 50

no need for orthogonal calibration standards

minimum of three inline two-port calibrations sufficient
"only" six self-terminating switches required
12
 4-port calibration

Port 1: WN Port 2: E N

N N N

W CPW CALSET
E W E W E

S S S

Port 2: E S Port 1: W S

1st-tier WE calibration: 2nd-tier NS calibration: 2nd-tier SN calibration:

applied to all raw data error boxes map error boxes map
reference planes to NS reference planes to SN

13
 4-port measurement example
Symmetric coupled lines on silicon
500 15
Measurement
95% Confidence Intervals
400 Calculation
R c11= R c22
10

Lcij (nH/cm)
300 L c11= L c22
Rcij (/cm)

200
5

100
L c12
R c12
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 26.5
Frequency (GHz)
(Arz/Williams/Walker/Grabinski, IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory and Tech., Dec. 2000) 14
Summary and conclusions

Calibration comparison method measures systematic

differences between on-wafer calibrations.
Error box analysis determines worst-case difference for
passive device measurement w.r.t. calibrations involved.
Calibration comparison is a powerful technique for:
- assessing test-set drift and connector repeatability
- compensating permittivity of lossless substrates
- measuring Z0 on lossy silicon interconnects
- calibrating 4-port measurements with a minimum
number of 2-port calibrations
15