Hitachi Displays, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi High-tech Corporation

Akio Yazaki

Mikio Hongo

Mutsuko Hatano

Takeshi Noda

Makoto Ohkura

Yukio Takasaki

Mitsuharu Tai

Hiroshi Saito

Takahiro Kamo

Masahiro Watanabe

Toshifumi Honda

Yuta Urano

Yukihiro Shibata

Yasuhiro Yoshitake

Takuo Kaitoh

Atsushi Taniguchi

Takeshi Sato

Shinya Yamaguchi

Hisae Shibuya

Tatsuo Hariyama

Hideki Fukushima

Hiroaki Kasai

Keiko Oka

Kenji Maruno

Kenshiro Ohtsubo

Yoshihiro Satou

Hideaki Shimmoto

The purpose of the present invention is to provide a substrate inspection device that increases the flatness of a substrate during inspection, and improves the detection sensitivity of foreign matter. Therefore, the present invention is a substrate inspection device provided with a turntable on which a substrate to be inspected is mounted, and a clamp mechanism that holds the substrate on the turntable. The substrate inspection device is characterized in that the clamp mechanism has an abutting part that moves in an in-plane direction of the substrate and presses the substrate. Preferably, the abutting part contacts or separates from an outer peripheral side surface of the substrate by rotating centered on a rotational axis in an out-of-plane direction of the substrate.

Substrate inspection device

A shape of an object is measured with a high degree of accuracy. A shape measurement system comprises: a distance measuring head for irradiating an object with light and receiving light reflected from the object; a distance measuring device for generating a distance detection waveform on the basis of the reflected light; and a control device for analyzing the distance detection waveform and calculating a measured distance value to the object. The shape measurement system is characterized in that the control device calculates a feature amount of the distance detection waveform and performs at least one of a process of correcting an error in the measured distance value by substituting the feature amount into a correction formula and a process of performing a confidence weighting of an error in the measured distance value by substituting the feature amount into a confidence weighting formula.

Shape measuring system and shape measuring method

An optical condition determination system includes a simulation execution unit that performs an optical simulation on a surface texture model that models a surface texture of a target object of the appearance inspection, and a defect model that models a defect of the target object, under a plurality of optical conditions to generate a surface texture image and a defect image, an image synthesizing unit that synthesizes the surface texture image and the defect image generated by an optical simulation under the same optical condition to generate a synthetic image, an evaluation value calculating unit that calculates an evaluation value representing easiness of detecting the defect in the synthetic image, a correlation analysis unit that analyzes a correlation between an optical condition and the evaluation value corresponding to the synthetic image, and an optimum condition searching unit that searches for the optical condition suitable for the appearance inspection based on an analysis result of the correlation.

Optical condition determination system and optical condition determination method

As a technique to improve processing efficiency of defect inspection by quickly adjusting a position of a detection system, provided is a defect inspection apparatus including: a stage that moves with a sample and a pattern substrate placed thereon; an illumination optical system that irradiates an object on the stage from a direction inclined from the normal direction of the pattern substrate; a first detection optical system that detects scattered light in the normal direction; a second detection optical system that detects scattered light in a direction different from the scattered light detected by the first detection optical system; a signal processing unit that processes both scattered light signals; and a control unit. The control unit implements first adjustment processing of adjusting a focal position of the first or the second detection optical system and a three-dimensional position of each detector with respect to an illumination region by using a scattered light signal and second adjustment processing of adjusting a focal point by changing a position in an optical axis direction of a detector of the first or the second detection optical system and a position in a height direction of the stage, and implements the second adjustment processing at a higher frequency than the first adjustment processing.

Defect inspection apparatus and pattern chip

A method of forming a semiconductor thin film includes a highly sensitive inspection method for detecting lateral crystals and a crystallizing method. In the crystallizing method, the time-based pulse width of a laser SXL is modulated and an approximate band-like crystal silicon film SPSI is formed in a desired region while scanning the substrate SUBbidirectionally in the X and &#x2212;X directions. In the inspection method, an inspection beam PROis irradiated to the substrate just after the laser SXL is turned off. A protrusion TOKI will be formed on the silicon film portion where the laser SXL is turned off if the state of the silicon film is that of a lateral crystal SPSI. The inspection beam PROis scattered by the protrusion TOKI and observed by a detector. If the state of the silicon film is granular crystal GGSI or aggregated film AGSI, such a protrusion TOKI is not observed.

Semiconductor thin film manufacturing method

In crystallization of a silicon film by annealing using a linear-shaped laser beam having a width of the short axis of the beam is ununiform, the profile (intensity distribution) of the laser beam is evaluated and the results are fed back to a condition of oscillating the laser beam or an optical condition for projecting the laser beam onto the silicon film, whereby a display device comprising a high-quality crystalline silicon film is manufactured. The energy distribution of the linear-shaped laser beam is determined by a detector type CCD camera which is moved stepwise in the directions in which its long axis and short axis extend, respectively, and a value obtained by dividing an accumulated intensity E in the long axis direction obtained by accumulating the detected signal in the direction parallel to the short axis by the square root of the width W of the short axis of the above linear-shaped laser beam in each position of the long axis: E/&#x221a;{square root over ( )}(W), is determined in all the positions of a cross section of the linear-shaped laser beam to evaluate the above intensity distribution.

Manufacturing method of display device

A method of manufacturing a display device to improve the quality of a polycrystal silicon upon dehydrogenating and polycrystallizing an amorphous silicon at the outside of a display region of a substrate, by forming a plurality of pixels having TFT devices using an amorphous silicon in the display region of the substrate, and forming a plurality of driving circuits having semiconductor devices using a polycrystal silicon at the outside of the display region, the method including irradiation of a first continuous oscillation laser only to the amorphous silicon in the region for forming the driving circuit and the peripheral region thereof to conduct dehydrogenation and then irradiation of a second continuous oscillation region only to the dehydrogenated region to polycrystallize the amorphous silicon, wherein the region to which the first continuous oscillation laser is irradiated is wider than the region to which the second continuous oscillation laser is irradiated.

In crystallization of a silicon film by annealing with a linear-shaped laser beam having an ununiform width of the short axis of the beam, the profile (intensity distribution) of the laser beam is evaluated, and the result is fed back to an oscillating condition of the laser beam or an optical condition which projects this onto the silicon film, whereby a display device comprising a high-quality crystalline silicon film is produced. In the present invention, (1) the energy distribution of the linear-shaped laser beam is measured by a detector type CCD camera moved stepwise in the directions that its long axis and short axis extend, respectively, (2) a value obtained by dividing an accumulated intensity E in the long axis direction obtained by accumulating the detected signals in a direction parallel to the short axis by the square root of the width W of the short axis of the linear-shaped laser beam in each position in the long axis: E/&#x221a;{square root over ( )}(W), is determined in all the positions of a cross section of the linear-shaped laser beam. Since a laser power which is suitable for lateral crystal growth of the silicon film has a close correlation with E/&#x221a;{square root over ( )}(W), this value is used as an evaluation result mentioned above in the present invention.

A semiconductor thin film is manufactured by scanning laser light or a substrate onto an arbitrary region of the semiconductor thin film and irradiating a laser thereon. The semiconductor thin film is formed by the substantially belt-shaped crystal being crystallized such that crystalline grains grow in the scanning direction, on the substrate, on XY coordinates where value x of beam size W (&#x3bc;m) of the laser light measured in substantially the same direction as the scanning direction is defined as X axis, and where value y of scanning velocity Vs (m/s) is defined as Y axis, the crystallization processing is performed within a region where all of the following conditions hold: condition 1: the beam size W is larger than wavelength of the laser beam, condition 2: the scanning velocity Vs is smaller than upper-limit of crystal growth speed, and condition 3: x&#xd7;(1/y)&#x3c;25 &#x3bc;s.

Manufacturing method of semiconductor film and image display device

A laser beam temporally modulated in amplitude by a modulator and shaped into a long and narrow shape by a beam shaper is rotated around the optical axis of an image rotator inserted between the beam shaper and a substrate. Thus, the longitudinal direction of the laser beam having the long and narrow shape is rotated around the optical axis on the substrate. In order to perform annealing in a plurality of directions on the substrate, the laser beam shaped into the long and narrow shape is rotated on the substrate while a stage mounted with the substrate is moved only in two directions, that is, X- and Y-directions. In such a manner, the substrate can be scanned at a high speed with a continuous wave laser beam modulated temporally in amplitude and shaped into a long and narrow shape, without rotating the substrate. Thus, a semiconductor film can be annealed.

Laser annealing apparatus and annealing method of semiconductor thin film using the same

A mechanism for always measuring the spatial intensity distribution of a laser beam and displacement of the optical axis of the laser beam is provided so that a measured signal is processed when the laser beam incident on a laser beam shaping optical element is out of a predetermined condition. The shape, diameter and incidence position of the laser beam incident on the laser beam shaping optical element are always kept in the predetermined condition by a spatial filter disposed at the position of a focal point of lenses forming a beam expander disposed in the optical axis, on the basis of a result of the signal processing. In this manner, silicon thin films uniform in crystallinity can be formed stably with a high yield on an insulating substrate which forms display panels of flat panel display devices.

Apparatus for manufacturing flat panel display devices

An amorphous silicon film on an insulating substrate portion to be formed as an individual display panel in a large-sized insulating substrate is irradiated with a continuous-wave (CW) solid-state laser beam condensed linearly, while being scanned therewith at a fixed speed in the width direction of the condensed laser beam. A pixel portion and a peripheral circuit portion in the same insulating substrate portion are irradiated with the laser beam temporally modulated to have a power density high enough to provide predetermined crystallinity. The amorphous silicon film is transformed into a silicon film having crystallinity corresponding to performance required for thin film transistors to be built in each of the pixel portion and the peripheral circuit portion. In such a manner, a thin film transistor circuit having optimum crystallinity required in the pixel or peripheral circuit portion can be obtained while high throughput is kept. Thus, a product having good display features as a display panel can be provided inexpensively.

Display panel and method for manufacturing the same

The whole surface of an insulating substrate having an amorphous silicon film formed thereon is scanned/irradiated with a solid-state pulsed laser beam shaped linearly or rectangularly, to form a uniform fine poly-crystalline silicon film for forming a pixel region. The periphery of the pixel region is scanned/irradiated with a time-modulated continuous-wave solid-state laser beam formed linearly. Thus, a peripheral circuit region including a drive circuit is formed as a poly-crystalline silicon film with crystals growing up in the scanning direction. Pixel portion thin film transistors are produced in the uniform fine poly-crystalline silicon film, while a drive circuit or an interface circuit is produced in the peripheral circuit region. One of substrates of a display panel is formed thus. A display panel including transistors with uniform properties in the pixel portion and transistors with excellent properties in the peripheral circuit portion including the drive circuit is obtained.

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Fuchu, Japan

Akio Yazaki