A critical comparison of on-line coupling IC-ICP-(AES, MS) with competing analytical methods for ultra trace analysis of microelectronic materials

On-line coupling of ion chromatography and atomic spectrometry (IC-ICP-(AES, MS)) are compared to so-called reference methods and other competing methods for ultra trace characterization of solid microelectronic materials. The comparison is based on analytical data gained for well characterized samples by a number of different laboratories. The matrices used for comparison are Mo, Mo-oxide, MoSi_x, W, W-oxide, WSi_x, metallic As, red P and Re. The analyte elements accessible by IC-ICP-(AES, MS) and with reference values for at least one other method are Ag, Al, Ba, Ca, Cd, Cr, Co, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, Ni, Ti, Tl, Th, U and Zn. The agreement of results of IC-ICP-(AES, MS) with those of isotope dilution mass spectrometry (IDMS) and radiochemical activation analyses (RNAA) shows good accuracy for most elements and some contamination problems with ubiquitous elements. A correlation of IC-ICP-(AES, MS) and GDMS results is undoubtful, but the discrepancies are rather high. As further technique ETV-ICP-MS is compared, whose results are in reasonable agreement with IC-ICP-(AES, MS). Details on some new applications as well as of some new methodological enhancements of on-line coupling IC-ICP(AES, MS) for the matrices As and P were included.