Kla Tencor Corporation

Chuanyong Huang

Donald Pettibone

Christian Wolters

Qing Li

Daniel Ivanov Kavaldjiev

Anatoly Romanovsky

Zhiwei Xu

Bret Whiteside

Kurt Lindsay Haller

Chunsheng J Huang

Raymond Chu

Chunhai Wang

Dieter Wilk

Frank Li

Gordana Neskovic

Tim Mahatdejkul

Steve (Yifeng) Cui

Buzz Graves

Stray and air scattered light can be reduced by configuring a size of the collection area of a sensor, which reduces a source of sensitivity-limiting noise in the system. By adjusting a size of the collection area, stray deep ultraviolet light and air-scattered deep ultraviolet light can be reduced. A servo can control a position of an illumination spot that is collected by the time delay and integration sensor.

Minimizing filed size to reduce unwanted stray light

Methods and systems for reducing illumination intensity while scanning over large particles are presented herein. A surface inspection system determines the presence of a large particle in the inspection path of a primary measurement spot using a separate leading measurement spot. The inspection system reduces the incident illumination power while the large particle is within the primary measurement spot. The primary measurement spot and the leading measurement spot are separately imaged by a common imaging collection objective onto one or more detectors. The imaging based collection design spatially separates the image of the leading measurement spot from the image of the primary measurement spot at one or more wafer image planes. Light detected from the leading measurement spot is analyzed to determine a reduced power time interval when the optical power of the primary illumination beam and the leading illumination beam are reduced.

Surface defect inspection with large particle monitoring and laser power control

The present disclosure is directed to a method for designing an aperture in a mask for inspecting a wafer. The method includes the steps of scanning a collection plane of the wafer at a plurality of points and collecting data for at least a part of the wafer. The method also includes the step of mapping the data. A further step of the method includes configuring the aperture based on the mapped data.

Haze and defect distribution and aperture configuration in surface metrology inspectors

A luminescent tag based defect detection system comprises a luminescent tag attachment assembly, an illumination source, one or more detectors, and a set of optical elements. The luminescent tag attachment assembly exposes a sample to one or more luminescent tag materials selectively attached to one or more defects on the sample. The illumination source generates illumination including one or more wavelengths corresponding to the one or more absorption spectra associated with the one or more luminescent tags. At least a portion of the set of optical elements directs illumination from the illumination source to the sample, and at least a portion of the set of optical elements directs illumination emitted from the one or more luminescent tag materials to the one or more detectors. A luminescent tag based defect detection system may also include a luminescent tag removal assembly to remove the luminescent tags after detection.

System and method for luminescent tag based wafer inspection

An inspection apparatus for simultaneous dark field (DF) and differential interference contrast (DIC) inspection includes an illumination source and a sample stage configured to secure a sample. The inspection apparatus includes a first sensor, a second sensor and an optical sub-system. The optical sub-system includes an objective, one or more optical elements arranged to direct, through the objective, illumination from the one or more illumination sources to a surface of the sample. The objective is configured to collect a signal from the surface of the sample, wherein the collected signal includes a scattering-based signal and/or a phase-based signal from the sample. The inspection apparatus includes one or more separation optical elements arranged to spatially separate the collected signal into a DF signal and a DIC signal by directing the DF signal and the DIC signal along a DF path and DIC path respectively.

System and method for simultaneous dark field and phase contrast inspection

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Chuanyong Huang