The two-dimensional (2D) profiling of the dopant concentration is of great importance not only for the development of new semiconductor devices (see e.g. ITRS99) but also for the failure analysis of state-of-the-art semiconductor devices. The scanning capacitance microscope (SCM) seems to be the most promising tool concerning 2D dopant profiling. SCM profits from three considerable advantages: it is commercially available, it offers a high spatial resolution and it is easy to use. On the other hand, many SCM operators complain about a difficult interpretation of the result of SCM measurements. The objective of this work is to give a detailed insight into scanning capacitance microscopy and to work out some guidelines for the usage of SCM in semiconductor failure analysis.