Kla Tencor Corporation

Kla-tencor Technologies Corporation

Amin Samsavar

William R Wheeler

Zhiwei Xu

Thomas G Miller

Steven G Eaton

Gregory S Horner

Thomas Harding McWaid

Jianou Shi

Sergio Edelstein

John M Schmidt

Peter G Panagas

Rainer Schierle

Jian-Ping Zhuang

Xiaofeng Hu

Patrick Stevens

William P Kuhn

John D Alexander

Robert E Parks

Michael Weber

Sergey Yudin

Dong Chen

Arun Srivatsa

Greg Horner

Steven Weinzierl

Jason Schneir

Systems configured to perform a non-contact method for determining a property of a specimen are provided. One system configured to perform a non-contact method for determining a property of a specimen includes a focused biasing device configured to provide a stimulus to a focused spot on the specimen. The system also includes a sensor configured to measure a parameter of a measurement spot on the specimen. The measurement spot overlaps the focused spot. The system further includes a processor configured to determine the property of the specimen from the parameter.

Systems configured to perform a non-contact method for determining a property of a specimen

Systems and methods for determining a property of a specimen are provided. The specimen may be a product wafer. The method may include biasing a focused spot on the specimen. The method may also include measuring a parameter of a measurement spot on the specimen. The measurement spot may overlap the focused spot. In addition, the method may include determining the property of the specimen from the measured parameter. Systems and methods for varying the performance of a corona source are also provided. The method may include altering a property of the environment within the corona source. The property may include, but is not limited to, temperature, pressure, humidity, and/or partial pressure of a gas within the corona source.

Contactless charge measurement of product wafers and control of corona generation and deposition

A method for determining a property of an insulating film is provided. The method may include obtaining a charge density measurement of the film, a surface voltage potential of the film relative to a bulk voltage potential of the substrate, and a rate of voltage decay of the film. The method may also include determining the property of the film using the charge density, the surface voltage potential, and the rate of voltage decay. A method for determining a thickness of an insulating film is provided. The method may include depositing a charge on the film, measuring a surface voltage potential of the film relative to a bulk voltage potential of the substrate, and measuring a rate of voltage decay of the film. The method may also include determining a thickness of the film using the rate of voltage decay and a theoretical model relating to current leakage and film thickness.

Methods and systems for determining a property of an insulating film

A profiler or scanning probe microscope may be scanned across a sample surface with a distance between them controlled to allow the sensing tip to contact the surface intermittently in order to find and measure features of interest. The distance is controlled so that when the sensing tip is raised or lowered to touch the sample surface, there is no lateral relative motion between the tip and the sample. This prevents tip damage. Prior knowledge of the height distribution of the sample surface may be provided or measured and used for positioning the sensing tip initially or in controlling the separation to avoid lateral contact between the tip and the sample. The process may also be performed in two parts: a fast find mode to find the features and a subsequent measurement mode to measure the features. A quick step mode may also be performed by choosing steps of lateral relative motion to be smaller than 100 nanometers to reduce probability of tip damage. In this mode, after each vertical step to increase the separation between the tip and the sample, it is detected as to whether the tip and the sample are in contact. If they are still in contact after the vertical step, one or more vertical steps are taken to increase the separation, and no vertical step to reduce the separation is taken and no lateral relative motion is caused until it is determined that the tip and the sample are no longer in contact.

System for sensing a sample

A dual stage scanning instrument includes a sensor for sensing a parameter of a sample and coarse and fine stages for causing relative motion between the sensor and the sample. The coarse stage has a resolution of about 1 micrometer and the fine stage has a resolution of 1 nanometer or better. The sensor is used to sense the parameter when both stages cause relative motion between the sensor assembly and the sample. The sensor may be used to sense height variations of the sample surface as well as thermal variations, electrostatic, magnetic, light reflectivity or light transmission parameters at the same time when height variation is sensed. By performing along scan at a coarser resolution and short scans a high resolution using the same probe tip or two probe tips at fixed relative positions, data obtained from the long and short scans can be correlated accurately.

Dual stage instrument for scanning a specimen

A method for determining a property of an insulating film is provided. The method may include obtaining a charge density measurement of the film, a surface voltage potential of the film relative to a bulk voltage potential of the substrate, and a rate of voltage decay of the film. The method may also include determining the property of the film using the charge density, the surface voltage potential, and the rate of voltage decay. A method for determining a thickness of an insulating film is provided. The method may include depositing a charge on the film, measuring a surface voltage potential of the film relative to a bulk voltage potential of the substrate, and measuring a rate of voltage decay of the film. The method may also include determining a thickness of the film using the rate of voltage decay and a theoretical model relating to leakage and film thickness.

A highly sensitive, non-contact tank probe to measure surface conductance of thin film structures, and a method for using the same, are described. The tank probe includes inductor (L), capacitor (C) and resistor (R) circuitry that is driven by a signal generator at the probe's resonant frequency. The conductance of a film structure specimen is determined from measuring the signal that is reflected from the tank probe and it respective frequency. Various types of information can be obtained from the tank probe. For instance, information as to film thickness, doping concentration, and the presence of defects can be obtained. In one embodiment of the invention, the tank probe is formed of integrated circuits within a semiconductor substrate. Another aspect of the present invention pertains to a method of using the tank probe system to measure the conductivity of a material specimen.

Tank probe for measuring surface conductance

A method to detect metal contamination on a semiconductor topography is provided. The semiconductor topography may include a semiconductor substrate or a dielectric material disposed upon a semiconductor substrate. The metal contamination may be driven into the semiconductor substrate by an annealing process. Alternatively, the annealing process may drive the metal contamination into the dielectric material. Subsequent to the annealing process, a charge may be deposited upon an upper surface of the semiconductor topography. An electrical property of the semiconductor topography may be measured. A characteristic of at least one type of metal contamination may be determined as a function of the electrical property of the semiconductor topography. The method may be used to determine a characteristic of one or more types of metal contamination on a portion of the semiconductor topography or the entire semiconductor topography. A system configured to detect metal contamination on a semiconductor topography is also provided. An oven may be incorporated into the system and may be used to anneal the semiconductor topography. The system may also include a device that may be configured to deposit a charge on an upper surface of the semiconductor topography. A sensor may also be included in the system. The sensor may use a non-contact work function technique to measure an electrical property of the semiconductor topography.

Method and system for detecting metal contamination on a semiconductor wafer

An optical profilometer and a stylus probe measuring device used in the same instrument have the advantage that these two sensors can be quickly switched between each other. This can be an advantage when used to measure samples, since the optical profilometer can be used until a sample is found to be outside of the desired tolerances. Afterwards, the stylus probe measuring device can be used to accurately determine the profile data. This is an advantage because an optical profilometer is relatively quick, and the stylus probe measuring device is relatively accurate. Additionally, since the optical profilometer and stylus probe device are in the same instrument, the X and Y positions of these devices can be interrelated accurately. This allows images to be produced where the positions on the images can be easily correlated. For example, measurement cursors in sensor data displays can correlated by the positional offset information.

Optical profilometer combined with stylus probe measurement device

A dual stage scanning instrument includes a sensor for sensing a parameter of a sample and coarse and fine stages for causing relative motion between the sensor and the sample. The coarse stage has a resolution of about 1 micrometer and the fine stage has a resolution of 1 nanometer or better. The sensor is used to sense the parameter when both stages cause relative motion between the sensor assembly and the sample, The sensor may be used to sense height variations of the sample surface as well as thermal variations electrostatic, magnetic, light reflectivity or light transmission parameters at the same time when height variation is sensed. By performing along scan at a coarser resolution and short scans a high resolution using the same probe tip or two probe tips at fixed relative positions, data obtained from the long and short scans can be correlated accurately.

A probe tip of a scanning probe microscope or a profilometer is scanned across a surface in a contact, non-contact, or intermittent contact mode to sense the presence of a feature to be located. The probe tip may be scanned along substantially parallel paths, spiral paths or in a sequence of random positions to locate the feature. After the feature has been located, a different searching sequence is employed in order to locate a center of the feature if such is desired. Then, the probe tip is scanned across the surface over the center of the feature in order to perform a measurement of the feature. For some particular features such as tungsten plugs, metal clusters or metal filled via holes of a surface, an electrical or magnetic parameter of the feature may be used for locating the feature after which the same or a different characteristic of the feature, such as geometric profile, can be measured.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Amin Samsavar