Hitachi-high-technologies Corporation

Akihiro Onizawa

Akiyuki Sugiyama

Hidetoshi Morokuma

Yasutaka Toyoda

Ryoichi Matsuoka

Norio Hasegawa

Atsushi Miyamoto

Satoru Yamaguchi

Naoki Hosoya

Miki Isawa

Toshikazu Kawahara

Ryuji Mitsuhashi

The purpose of the present invention is to provide a pattern measurement device which adequately evaluates a pattern formed by means of a patterning method for forming a pattern that is not in a photomask. In order to fulfil the purpose, the present invention suggests a pattern measurement device provided with a computation device for measuring the dimensions between patterns formed on a sample, wherein: the centroid of the pattern formed on the sample is extracted from data to be measured obtained by irradiating beams; a position alignment process is executed between the extracted centroid and measurement reference data in which a reference functioning as the measurement start point or measurement end point is set; and the dimensions between the measurement start point or the measurement end point of the measurement reference data, which was subjected to position alignment, and the edge or the centroid of the pattern contained in the data to be measured is measured.

Pattern measurement device, and computer program for measuring pattern

In order to provide a technique for performing global alignment (detecting position shift and rotation of a wafer) stably and automatically using an optical microscope, as a pattern for global alignment, multiple alignment pattern candidates are calculated (), multiple data for matching are created for each alignment pattern (), matching is performed with respect to the data for matching for each alignment pattern in descending order of appropriateness as an alignment pattern with an image () based on an image signal from the optical microscope (), and the amount of position shift and the amount of rotation of the wafer are calculated () on the basis of the results of matching ().

Global alignment using multiple alignment pattern candidates

Mutual compatibility is established between the measurement with a high magnification and the measurement in a wide region. A pattern measurement apparatus is proposed which adds identification information to each of fragments that constitute a pattern within an image obtained by the SEM, and which stores the identification information in a predetermined storage format. Here, the identification information is added to each fragment for distinguishing between one fragment and another fragment. According to the above-described configuration, it turns out that the identification information is added to each fragment on the SEM image which has possessed no specific identification information originally. As a result, it becomes possible to implement the SEM-image management based on the identification information.

Pattern measurement apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Mito, Japan

Akihiro Onizawa