Hitachi-high-technologies Corporation

Hitachi, Ltd.

Other

Jeol Ltd.

Hitachi High-tech Electronics Engineering Co., Ltd.

Renesas Technology Corp.

Hitachi Electronics Engineering Co., Ltd.

Hitachi Tokyo Electronics Co., Ltd.

Hitachi High-tech Corporation

Joel Ltd.

Hitachi High-electronics Corporation

Hidetoshi Nishiyama

Minori Noguchi

Akira Hamamatsu

Yoshimasa Ohshima

Takahiro Jingu

Sachio Uto

Tetsuya Watanabe

Shunji Maeda

Kenji Watanabe

Mari Nozoe

Takanori Ninomiya

Yoshio Morishige

Yukio Kembo

Shunichi Matsumoto

Hisato Nakamura

Yoshimasa Ooshima

Masahiro Watanabe

Maki Tanaka

Kenji Oka

Shuichi Chikamatsu

Keiji Sakai

Ryouji Matsunaga

Kaoru Sakai

Mitsuo Suga

Toshihiko Nakata

Minoru Yoshida

Mitsuru Koizumi

Toshifumi Honda

Hiroyuki Nakano

Yuta Urano

Yukihiro Shibata

Yoshimasa Oshima

Hiroshi Morioka

Kazuhiko Matsuoka

Takuaki Sekiguchi

Yoshiharu Shigyo

Shigeaki Hijikata

Koji Abe

Mitsugu Sato

Muneyuki Fukuda

Hiroyuki Shinada

Naomasa Suzuki

Hisae Shibuya

Kei Shimura

Noritsugu Takahashi

Atsuko Fukada

Yoichiro Neo

Masaaki Ito

Hisashi Hatano

Hikaru Koyama

Yasuhiro Yoshitake

Shinichi Suzuki

Masataka Shiba

Takafumi Okabe

Yuzo Taniguchi

Hideaki Doi

Keiya Saito

Hiroyuki Yamashita

Takahiro Urano

Kazuo Takahashi

Kenji Mitomo

Takashi Okawa

Atsushi Miki

Yuko Inoue

Keiichi Saiki

Kenshiro Ohtsubo

Fumiaki Endo

Nobuaki Hirose

Shohei Hamada

Tetsuyai Watanabe

This alignment device aligns a stageand a waferby comparing alignment images captured by respective two chips of the waferon the stage. The alignment device comprises: the stagethat holds the wafer; an alignment illumination light sourcethat irradiates the waferheld on the stagewith light; an alignment a image processing unitthat receives light from the waferand acquires the alignment images; an information input/output unitthat inputs and outputs information; and an alignment processing unitthat processes information from the image processing unitfor alignment information input/output unit. The alignment processing unitsets an alignment image captured on a first wafer as a reference image, quantifies, on the basis of a difference obtained by comparing the reference image with an alignment image captured on a second wafer, sequential change information of a wafer surface state from a time when the first wafer is captured to a time when the second wafer is captured, and displays the quantified sequential change information on the information input/output unit

Alignment device and alignment method

In an defect inspection method and device, in order to detect a minute defect present on a surface of a sample with a high degree of sensitivity, a defect inspection method includes imaging the same region of a sample in a plurality of image acquisition conditions and acquiring a plurality of images, processing the plurality of acquired images and extracting a defect candidate, clipping a partial image including the extracted defect candidate and a neighboring image of the defect candidate from the acquired images based on position information of the extracted defect candidate, obtaining feature quantities of the defect candidates in the plurality of clipped partial images, associating the defect candidates that have the same coordinates on the sample and are detected in different image acquisition condition, extracting a defect from among the associated defect candidates in a multi-dimensional feature quantity space, and outputting information of the extracted defect.

Defect inspection device and defect inspection method

In a defect inspecting apparatus, the strength of a fatal defect signal decreases due to miniaturization. Thus, in order to assure a high SN ratio, it is necessary to reduce noises caused by scattered light from a wafer. Roughness of a pattern edge and surface roughness which serve as a scattered-light source are spread over the entire wafer. The present invention has discovered the fact that reduction of an illuminated area is a technique effective for decreasing noises. That is to say, the present invention has discovered the fact that creation of an illuminated area having a spot shape and reduction of the dimension of a spot beam are effective. A plurality of temporally and spatially divided spot beams are radiated to the wafer serving as a sample.

Apparatus for inspecting defect with time/spatial division optical system

To improve sensitivity of a defect inspection, it is required to decrease influence of excessive diffraction from a spatial filter. Further, it is preferable to secure signal intensity from defects and particles as much as possible, while the influence of the excessive diffraction is decreased as much as possible. The present invention is characterized in setting a width of a spatial filter surface such that an unnecessary image caused by diffraction, that is, an intensity of the excessive diffraction is sufficiently small with respect to an intensity of a desired image. In the present invention, an SN ratio that is an index for deciding a width of the spatial filter is calculated from a region subjected to the influence of the excessive diffraction in an inspection image, and a width of a shield unit of the spatial filter is set so as to maximize the SN ratio.

Inspection system

Provided is a pattern defect inspecting apparatus wherein inspection performance is stabilized. The defect inspecting apparatus, which has a plurality of configuration units and inspects defects on the surface of a sample, is provided with a means for monitoring time-dependent changes and failures of some of or all of the configuration units, and a means for notifying the user of the results of the monitoring. Furthermore, a unit which can perform correction is provided with a correcting means, and also a means for replacing a failure component with a spare component which has been prepared in the device.

Apparatus and method for inspecting pattern defect

A method of inspecting defects of a sample on a movable table includes a first step for, on a basis of position information of the defects which is previously detected by an other inspection system, driving the table so that the defects come into a viewing field of an optical microscope having a focus which is adjusted, a second step for re-detecting the defects to obtain a first detection result, a third step for correcting the position information of defects on a basis of position information of the re-detected defects, and a fourth step for reviewing the defects whose position information is corrected to obtain a second detection result. At the second step, re-detecting is performed using reflection light or scattered light from the sample which passes an optical filter which includes a light shielding portion and a light transmitting portion.

Method and apparatus for reviewing defects

This invention implements reduction in the amount of background-scattered light from a semiconductor wafer surface and highly sensitive inspection, without increasing the number of detectors. A surface inspection apparatus that detects defects on the surface of an object (semiconductor wafer surface) to be inspected, by irradiating the surface of the object with a beam of light such as laser light and detecting the light reflected or scattered from the surface; wherein a widely apertured lens with an optical Fourier transform function is disposed between the object to be inspected and a detector, a filter variable in position as well in aperture diameter is provided on a Fourier transform plane, and background-scattered light from the semiconductor wafer surface is effectively blocked, whereby only a signal from a defect such as a foreign substance is detected.

Inspection apparatus

The pattern inspection apparatus of the present invention performs comparison between images of regions corresponding to patterns formed to be same patterns, thereby determining mismatch portions across the images to be defects. The apparatus includes multiple sensors that synchronously acquire images of shiftable multiple detection systems different from one another, and an image comparator section corresponding thereto. In addition, the apparatus includes a means for detecting a statistical offset value from the feature amount to be a defect, thereby properly detecting the defect even when a brightness difference is occurring in association with film a thickness difference in a wafer.

Method and apparatus for inspecting patterns formed on a substrate

The invention provides a defect inspection method and a defect inspection device which enable a defect to be inspected regardless of optical conditions. The invention comprises the steps of setting a target local region and a plurality of corresponding local regions in the image signals, the target local region including a target pixel and an area surrounding the target pixel, the corresponding local regions including pixels corresponding to the target pixel and areas surrounding the corresponding pixels; searching similarities between the image signal of the target local region and the image signals of the plurality of corresponding local regions; determining a plurality of image signals that represent corresponding local regions and are similar to the image signal of the target local region; and comparing the image signal of the target local region with the image signals that represent the corresponding local regions.

Defect inspection method and device thereof

An aspect of the invention provides a defect inspection apparatus being able to accurately inspect a micro foreign matter or defect at a high speed for an inspection target substrate in which a repetitive pattern and a non-repetitive pattern are mixed. In a foreign matter anti-adhesive means, a transparent plateis placed on a placement tablethrough a frame. In the foreign matter anti-adhesive means, a shaftwhich is rotatably supported by two columnar supportsfixed onto a baseis coupled to a motorby a coupling. The shaftis inserted into a part of a framebetween the two columnar supportssuch that the frameand the transparent plateare turnable about the shaft. Therefore, the whole of the frameis opened and closed in a Z-direction about the shaft, and a waferon the placement tablecan be covered with the frameand the transparent plate

Apparatus and method for inspecting defect in object surface

A method and apparatus of inspecting a sample, in which the sample is inspected under a plurality of inspection conditions, and inspection data obtained by inspecting the sample under each of the plurality of inspection conditions and position information on the sample of the inspection date in correspondence with the respective inspection conditions, are stored. The inspection data for each of the plurality of inspection conditions is against each other by the use of the position information on the sample to determine a position to be inspected in detail, and an image of the sample at a position to be inspected in detail is obtained. The obtained image is classified, the inspection condition of the sample by the use of information of classification of the image is determined.

Method of inspecting a semiconductor device and an apparatus thereof

An electron beam apparatus equipped with a review function of a semiconductor wafer includes a scanning electron microscope to obtain image information of a semiconductor wafer, and an information processing apparatus to process the image information. The information processing apparatus includes a data input unit to receive positional information of a defect on the wafer, a storage for storing a plurality of image information of a position on the wafer corresponding to the positional information, and an image processing unit that retrieves any of the plurality of image information, and classifies the retrieved image information corresponding to the positional information depending on the type of defect.

Method of inspecting pattern and inspecting instrument

An inspecting apparatus and method including first and second illuminating units for illuminating a surface of a specimen to be inspected with different incident angles and first and second detecting optical units arranged at different elevation angle directions to the surface of the specimen for detecting images of the specimen illuminated by the first and second illuminating units.

Defects inspecting apparatus and defects inspecting method

Apparatus and method for inspecting defect on object surface

In a pattern inspection apparatus, influences of pattern brightness variations that is caused in association with, for example, a film thickness difference or a pattern width variation can be reduced, high sensitive pattern inspection can be implemented, and a variety of defects can be detected. Thereby, the pattern inspection apparatus adaptable to a broad range of processing steps is realized. In order to realize this, the pattern inspection apparatus of the present invention performs comparison between images of regions corresponding to patterns formed to be same patterns, thereby determining mismatch portions across the images to be defects. The apparatus includes multiple sensors capable of synchronously acquiring images of shiftable multiple detection systems different from one another, and an image comparator section corresponding thereto. In addition, the apparatus includes means of detecting a statistical offset value from the feature amount to be a defect, thereby enabling the defect to be properly detected even when a brightness difference is occurring in association with film a thickness difference in a wafer.

Growing community of inventors

Fujisawa, Japan

Hidetoshi Nishiyama