Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi Ulsi Systems Co., Ltd.

Other

Hitachi High-tech Corporation

Renesas Technology Corp.

Hitachi Electronics Engineering Co., Ltd.

Hitachi High-tech Electronics Engineering Co., Ltd.

Aritoshi Sugimoto

Maki Tanaka

Takashi Hiroi

Mari Nozoe

Masahiro Watanabe

Hiroyuki Shinada

Asahiro Kuni

Chie Shishido

Shunji Maeda

Haruo Yoda

Yasutsugu Usami

Atsuko Takafuji

Katsuhiro Kuroda

Hiroshi Miyai

Yuichi Hamamura

Yutaka Kaneko

Yuji Takagi

Yusuke Yajima

Hitoshi Kubota

Katsuya Sugiyama

Kimiaki Ando

Kazushi Yoshimura

Yukio Matsuyama

Hiroshi Tooyama

Tadao Ino

Yasuhiko Nara

Kazuyuki Tsunokuni

Hisao Asakura

Takaaki Kumazawa

Satoshi Tomimatsu

Tohru Ishitani

Takanori Ninomiya

Hidemi Koike

Isamu Sekihara

Junzo Azuma

Hideaki Doi

Hiroyuki Shinoda

Masashi Horiguchi

Norio Hasegawa

Kaoru Umemura

Noriyuki Sakuma

Yoshitaka Sasago

Yoshitaka Tadaki

Makoto Ohkura

Kenji Watanabe

Akira Shimase

Tetsuya Watanabe

Shinichi Fukada

Hiroshi Morioka

Makoto Ogasawara

Kiyonori Ohyu

Nobuyuki Mise

Masami Ikota

Yuko Inoue

Keiichi Saiki

Junichi Taguchi

Wakana Shinke

Hideo Todokoro

Hiroyasu Shichi

Seiichi Watanabe

Tokuo Kure

Kazuo Takeda

Yasuhiro Mitsui

Takashi Tsutsumi

Ken Ninomiya

Takashi Nishida

Hisato Nakamura

Yoshimi Sudo

Munenori Degawa

Masami Ikoto

The present invention aims to provide a fuel battery system improved in reliability by accurately detecting when a fuel electrode gas or an air electrode gas has leaked. A fuel battery cell according to the present invention includes a first electrode, an electrolyte membrane, and a second electrode which are layered on a support substrate. Further, at least any one of the first electrode, the electrolyte membrane, and the second electrode is electrically isolated by an insulating member to form a first region and a second region. The insulating member is disposed at a position where the insulating member does not overlap with an opening portion of the support substrate (refer to FIG.).

Fuel battery cell, fuel battery system, leak detection method

Provided is a highly reliable fuel cell that improves power generation efficiency of the fuel cell and that is less likely to cause damage to an electrode and an electrolyte film. The fuel cell includes a support substrate () having a region in which a support portion having a mesh-like shape in a plan view is provided, a first electrode 4 on the support substrate, an electrolyte filmon the first electrode, and a second electrodeon the electrolyte film. The first electrode includes a first thin film electrodeA formed in a manner of covering at least the region, and a first mesh-like electrodeB connected to the first thin film electrode and provided corresponding to the support portion. The first mesh-like electrodeB has a film thickness larger than that of the first thin film electrode and has a mesh-like shape in a plan view.

Fuel cell

An apparatus for processing a defect candidate image, including: a scanning electron microscope for taking an enlarged image of a specimen by irradiating and scanning a converged electron beam onto the specimen and detecting charged particles emanated from the specimen by the irradiation; an image processor for processing the image taken by the scanning electron microscope to detect defect candidates on the specimen and classify the detected defect candidates into one of plural classes; a memory for storing output from the image processor including images of the detected defect candidates; and a display unit which displays information stored in the memory and an indicator, wherein the display unit displays a distribution of the detected and classified defect candidates in a map format by distinguishing by the classified class, and the display unit also displays an image of a defect candidate stored in the memory together with the map which is indicated on the map by the indicator.

Pattern inspection method and apparatus

A circuit pattern inspection method and an apparatus therefore, in which the whole of a portion to be inspected of a sample to be inspected is made to be in a predetermined changed state, the portion to be inspected is irradiated with an image-forming high-density electron beam while scanning the electron beam, secondary charged particles are detected at a portion irradiated with the electron beam after a predetermined period of time from an instance when the electron beam is irradiated, an image is formed on the basis of the thus detected secondary charged particle signal, and the portion to be inspected is inspected by using the thus formed image.

Method and apparatus for inspecting integrated circuit pattern

An apparatus for processing a defect candidate image, including: an imager for taking an enlarged image of a specimen; an image processor for processing the image taken by the imager to detect defect candidates existing on the specimen and classify the detected defect candidates into one of plural defect classes; a memory for storing information of the defect candidates including the images of the defect candidates and the classified defect class data outputted from the image processor; and a display unit having a display screen for displaying information stored in the memory, wherein the display unit displays an image of the defect candidates together with the defect class data stored in the memory and the displayed defect class data is changeable on the display screen, and the memory changes the stored defect class data of the displayed defect candidate to the changed defect class data.

A pattern inspection apparatus including: an image detecting part for detecting a digital image of an object substrate; a display having a screen on which the digital image of the object substrate and/or a distribution of defect candidates in a map form are displayable; an input device for inputting information of a non-inspection region to be masked on the object substrate by defining a region on the screen on which said distribution of defect candidates is displayed in a map form; a memory part for storing coordinate data, pattern data or feature quantity data of the non-inspection region to be masked on the object substrate inputted on the screen by the input device; and a defect judging part in which the digital image detected by the image detecting part is examined in a state that a region matching with a condition stored in the memory part is masked and a defect is detected in a region other than said masked region.

A circuit pattern inspection method and an apparatus therefor, in which the whole of a portion to be inspected of a sample to be inspected is made to be in a predetermined charged state, the portion to be inspected is irradiated with an image-forming high-density electron beam while scanning the electron beam, secondary charged particles are detected at a portion irradiated with the electron beam after a predetermined period of time from an instance when the electron beam is irradiated, an image is formed on the basis of the thus detected secondary charged particle signal, and the portion to be inspected is inspected by using the thus formed image.

A probe driving method and a probe apparatus for bringing a probe into contact with the surface of a sample in a safe and efficient manner by monitoring the probe height. Information about the height of the probe from the sample surface is obtained by detecting a probe shadow () appearing immediately before the probe contacts the sample, or based on a change in relative positions of a probe image and a sample image that are formed as an ion beam is irradiated diagonally.

Probe driving method, and probe apparatus

A pattern inspection method in which an image can be detected without an image detection error caused by an adverse effect to be given by such factors as ions implanted in a wafer, pattern connection/non-connection, and pattern edge formation. A digital image of an object substrate is attained through microscopic observation thereof, the attained digital image is examined to detect defects, while masking a region pre-registered in terms of coordinates, or while masking a pattern meeting a pre-registered pattern, and an image of each of the defects thus detected is displayed. Further, each of the defects detected using the digital image attained through microscopic observation is checked to determine whether its feature meets a pre-registered feature or not. Defects having a feature that meets the pre-registered feature are so displayed that they can be turned on/off, or they are so displayed as to be distinguishable from the other defects.

The present invention relates to detection of defects with simple specification of the coordinates, in the inspection of an object having a plurality of patterns in which a portion having the two-dimensional repetition and portions having the repetition only in the X direction and in the Y direction are mixedly present. The cross comparison between a notice point and comparison points, for example which are repetitive pitches away from the notice point, is carried out, and only the portion having the difference which can be found out with any of the comparison points is extracted as a defect candidate, which results in that the portion having the two-dimensional repetition as well as the portion having the repetition only in the X direction or in the Y direction can be inspected. As a result, while the portion, such as an isolated point, having no repetition both in the X direction and in the Y direction is extracted as the defect candidate, the defect candidate is not treated as the defect in the case where the defect candidate of interest occurs regularly in a plurality of objects to be inspected, so that such a defect candidate is excluded to extract only a true defect.

Method and system for inspecting a pattern

An inspection method and apparatus includes control of an acceleration voltage of an electron beam, irradiation of the electron beam to an object to be inspected mounted on a stage which is continuously moving at least in one direction, and detection of at least one of secondary electrons and reflected electrons emanated from the object in response to the irradiation. An image of the object is obtained from the detected electron by using positional information of the stage and inspection or measurement of the object is conducted using and obtained image. In the detection, an electric field in the vicinity of the object mounted on the stage is controlled so that at least one secondary electrons and the reflected electrons emanated from the object in response to the irradiation of the electron beam are decelerated.

Electron beam inspection method and apparatus and semiconductor manufacturing method and its manufacturing line utilizing the same

To make possible the in-line inspection of a pattern of an insulating material. A patterned waferformed with a pattern by a resist film is placed on a specimen tableof a patterned wafer inspection apparatusin opposed relation to a SEM. An electron beamof a large current is emitted from an electron gunand the pattern of the patterned wafer is scanned only once at a high scanning rate. The secondary electrons generated by this scanning from the patterned wafer are detected by a secondary electron detectorthereby to acquire an electron beam image. Using this electron beam image, the comparative inspection is conducted on the patterned wafer through an arithmetic operation unitand a defect determining unitSince an electron beam image of high contrast can be obtained by scanning an electron beam only once, a patterned wafer inspection method using a SEM can be implemented in the IC fabrication method.

Disconnection defects, short-circuit defects and the like in wiring patterns of submicron sizes within TEGs (a square of 1 to 2.5 mm for each) numerously arranged in a large chip (a square of 20 to 25 mm) can be inspected with respect to all the TEGs, with good operability, high reliability and high efficiency. A conductor probe for applying voltage to the wiring patterns by mechanical contact is composed of synchronous type conductor probe that synchronizes with movement of a sample stage (), and fixed type conductor probe means () that is relatively fixed to an FIB generator (). Positions of probe tips are superimposed to an SIM image and displayed on a display unit ().

Apparatus for inspecting defects of devices and method of inspecting defects

A probe driving method and a probe apparatus for bringing a probe into contact with the surface of a sample in a safe and efficient manner by monitoring the probe height. Information about the height of the probe from the sample surface is obtained by detecting a probe shadow appearing immediately before the probe contacts the sample, or based on a change in relative positions of a probe image and a sample image that are formed as an ion beam is irradiated diagonally.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Aritoshi Sugimoto