Applied Materials Israel Limited

Alexander Chereshnya

Boaz Cohen

Ariel Shkalim

Evgeny Bal

Oren Shmuel Cohen

Ronen Madmon

Ori Petel

Vladimir Ovechkin

There is provided a mask inspection system and a method of mask inspection. The method comprises: detecting, by the inspection tool, a runtime defect at a defect location on a mask of a semiconductor specimen during runtime scan of the mask, and acquiring, by the inspection tool after runtime and based on the defect location, a plurality sets of aerial images of the runtime defect corresponding to a plurality of focus states throughout a focus process window, each set of aerial images acquired at a respective focus state. The method further comprises for each set of aerial images, calculating a statistic-based EPD value of the runtime defect, thereby giving rise to a plurality of statistic-based EPD values each corresponding to a respective focus state, and determining whether the runtime defect is a true defect based on the plurality of statistic-based EPD values.

Mask inspection of a semiconductor specimen

There is provided a mask inspection system and a method of mask inspection. The method comprises: during a runtime scan of a mask of a semiconductor specimen, processing a plurality of aerial images of the mask acquired by the mask inspection system to calculate a statistic-based Edge Positioning Displacement (EPD) of a potential defect, wherein the statistic-based EPD is calculated using a Print Threshold (PT) characterizing the mask and is applied to each of the one or more acquired aerial images to calculate respective EPD of the potential defect therein; and filtering the potential defect as a 'runtime true' defect when the calculated statistic-based EPD exceeds a predefined EPD threshold, and filtering out the potential defect as a 'false' defect when the calculated statistic-based EPD is lower than the predefined EPD threshold. The method can further comprise after-runtime EPD-based filtering of the plurality of &#x201c;runtime true&#x201d; defects.

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Kfar Saba, Israel

Alexander Chereshnya