Kioxia Corporation

Toshiba Memory Corporation

Chihiro Ida

Youyang Ng

Takuji Ohashi

Yuko Kono

Atsushi Nakajima

Yukinobu Sakata

An inspection device includes an emission unit of first charging particles. A deflection unit deflects the first charging particles to scan a surface of a target object with the first charging particles. A detection unit detects second charging particles generated from the surface of the target object receiving the first charging particles. An image generation unit generates an image of the surface of the target object based on a detection result of the second charging particles by the detection unit. A control unit controls a scan direction of the first charging particles. A calculation unit detects normal directions to a contour of an uneven portion on the surface of the target object in a first image obtained by scanning in a first scan direction. The calculation unit calculates a frequency of a first angle formed between a reference axis of the first image and a normal direction of each of a plurality of unit regions. The calculation unit determines the normal direction corresponding to a most frequent value of the first angle among the normal directions as a second scan direction. The calculation unit calculates a height of the uneven portion based on a second image obtained by scanning in the second scan direction.

Inspection device and inspection method

A semiconductor image processing apparatus has an image input unit inputs a first semiconductor image, an exposure condition input unit configured to input exposure conditions, a generator performs a process of extracting a feature amount in consideration of the exposure conditions while reducing resolution of the first semiconductor image and thereafter use the extracted feature amount to increase the resolution to generate a second semiconductor image, and a discriminator configured to discriminate whether the input image is the second semiconductor image or a third semiconductor image provided in advance. The generator performs learning so that the discriminator erroneously discriminates the second semiconductor image as the third semiconductor image based on a result discriminated by the discriminator. The discriminator performs learning so as not to erroneously discriminate the second semiconductor image as the third semiconductor image, and not to erroneously discriminate the third semiconductor image as the second semiconductor image.

Semiconductor image processing apparatus

According to one embodiment, a contour extraction method for extracting a contour of a target object from an image obtained using an electron beam includes: extracting the contour of the target object from a backscattered electron image; creating a dictionary for associating a secondary electron image obtained from a portion common to the backscattered electron image with the contour; calculating a likelihood of the contour of the target object in a plurality of positions of a newly obtained secondary electron image by referencing the dictionary regarding the newly obtained secondary electron image; and setting a route along which a total sum of the likelihood is maximized out of the plurality of positions as the contour of the target object.

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Yokkaichi, Japan

Chihiro Ida