Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi-High-Technologies Corporation

Hisafumi Iwata

Makoto Ono

Minori Noguchi

Kenji Aiko

Shuichi Chikamatsu

Junko Konishi

Yoko Ikeda

Yuji Takagi

Yasuhiro Yoshitake

Kenji Obara

Ryo Nakagaki

Yasuo Nakagawa

Yasuhiko Ozawa

Seiji Isogai

Kazunori Nemoto

Kanako Harada

Minoru Yoshida

Hiroyuki Nakano

Hitoshi Kubota

Yukihiro Shibata

Takanori Ninomiya

Yoshimasa Ohshima

Hiroyuki Tanaka

Yoshitada Oshida

Aizo Kaneda

Nobuyuki Akiyama

Koichi Sugimoto

Toshimitsu Hamada

Yukio Matsuyama

Tsutomu Mimata

Toshihiko Sakai

Natsuyo Morioka

Michio Takahashi

Yohei Asakawa

Toshiaki Ichinose

Tooru Mita

Kouji Serizawa

Keizo Matsukawa

Chie Yamanaka

Keiko Kirino

A defect inspection system can suppress an effect of light from a rough surface or a circuit pattern and increasing a gain of light from a defect to detect the defect with high sensitivity. When a lens with a large NA value is used, the diameter is, an angle between the sample surface and a traveling direction of the light from a defect being &#x3b1;. A system receives the light from the defect at a reduced elevation angle &#x3b1;with respect to the sample surface to reduce the scattered light, and to increase the light from the defect. The diameteris smaller than the diameter, resulting in a reduction in the ability to focus the scattered light. When a lens having a diameteris used, the lens interferes with the sample. To avoid the interference, a portion of the lens interfering with the sample is removed.

Defect inspection system

A method for classifying defects, including: calculating feature quantifies of defect image which is obtained by imaging a defect on a sample; classifying the defect image into a classified category by using information on the calculated feature quantities; displaying the classified defect image in a region on a display screen which is defined to the classified category; adding information on the classified category to the displayed defect image; transferring the displayed defect image which is added the information on the classified category to one of the other categories and displaying the transferred defect image in a region on the display screen which is defined to the one of the other categories; and changing information on the category.

Inspecting method, inspecting system, and method for manufacturing electronic devices

A defect inspection system can suppress an effect of light from a sample rough surface or a regular circuit pattern and increasing a gain of light from a defect such as a foreign material to detect the defect on the sample surface with high sensitivity. When a lens with a large NA value is used, the outer diameter of the lens is, and an angle between the sample surface and a traveling direction of the light from a defect is &#x3b1;. An oblique detection optics system receives the light from the defect at a reduced elevation angle &#x3b1;with respect to the sample surface to reduce light from the sample rough surface, an oxide film rough bottom surface, and a circuit pattern, and to increase the amount of the light from the defect and detected. The diameterof a lens is smaller than the diameter, resulting in a reduction in the ability to focus the scattered light. When a lens with an outer diameteris used to improve the focus ability, the lens interferes with the sample. To avoid the interference, a portion of the lens interfering with the sample is removed. The lens has an aperture larger than the diameterwhile the lens receives the light scattered at the elevation angle &#x3b1;, making it possible to improve the ability to detect defects and lens performance simultaneously.

A defect inspection system can suppress an effect of light from a sample rough surface or a regular circuit pattern and increase a gain of light from a defect such as a foreign material to detect the defect on the sample surface with high sensitivity. When a lens with a large NA value is used, an oblique detection optics system receives the light from the defect at a reduced elevation angle with respect to the sample surface to reduce light from the sample rough surface, an oxide film rough bottom surface, and a circuit pattern, and increases the amount of the light from the defect and detected. The diameter of a lens is smaller than the diameter of a second lens, resulting in a reduction in the ability to focus the scattered light.

There is disclosed a defect detecting apparatus that focuses a laser beam, irradiates it onto the surface of a sample to be examined, and detects a foreign substance/defect existing on the surface from the scattered light as a result of the irradiation of the beam onto the sample surface. In order to stably detect defects such as foreign substance, the defect detecting apparatus according to the invention is constructed to use a beam shape optical system by which the laser beam emitted from a laser source is shaped to change the illumination intensity from its Gauss distribution to a flat distribution so that the detected signal can be stably produced even if the relative position of a defect/foreign substance to the laser beam irradiation position is changed.

Method and apparatus for detecting defects

The present invention has an analyzing unit including an image detection device for producing a plurality of images of a workpiece, a storage for storing detected images produced by the image detection device, and a display having a screen with a first area for displaying a plurality of detected images stored in the storage and a plurality of second areas for classifying the detected images according to features of the detected images, whereby the plurality of detected images are moved on the screen from the first area to selected second areas to classify the plurality of detected images in the second areas.

A program is provided for setting efficiently, and with precision, the inspection conditions of an inspection device that detects particles and deformed patterns in or on products such as semiconductor integrated circuits that are manufactured by simultaneously forming a plurality of products on a single substrate. In particular, the system achieves greater efficiency of the setting of cell comparison regions and the setting of non-inspection regions. Input processing of a product type code, input processing of chip size and configuration information, reading processing of circuit layout data, extraction processing of repeated pattern region coordinates, extraction processing of sparse region coordinates and circuit pattern condition registration processing are sequentially executed.

Inspection condition setting program, inspection device and inspection system

Inspection data output from an inspection apparatus is read, the inspection data containing at least one information piece of coordinate value information and size information of a particle or a pattern defect of an inspected object, and drawing data of a product of the inspected object is read. Information is extracted which is representative of a relation between at least one information piece of coordinated value information and size information of the particle or pattern defect of the inspected object in the read inspection data and the read drawing data input at said drawing data input step. The extracted information is compared with determination criterion information registered beforehand and it is determined whether each particle or pattern defect of the inspected object in the inspection data is a detection error or not.

Inspection data analysis program, defect inspection apparatus, defect inspection system and method for semiconductor device

A method and system are provided for analyzing defects having the potential to become electrical failures, during the inspection of particles and/or pattern defects of a wafer used in the manufacture of electronic devices such as semiconductor integrated circuits. Defect map data is processed along with failure probability data. Next, defect-dependent failure probability calculations are made to obtain the failure probability of each defect in the defect map data. That data is then used to prepare failure-probability-added defect map data. Further, a selection process of defects to be reviewed is used to reorder and filter defects from the failure-probability-added defect map data, thus selecting one or more defects for review.

Inspection system and semiconductor device manufacturing method

In the wafer production process of a semiconductor integrated circuit, an inspection system and an inspection apparatus that convert and output a yield loss at high accuracy from the result of a defect inspection, such as a dark-field inspection and a bright-field inspection without waiting for the result of the final probing test. Defect map data read processing and kill ratio computation data read processing are performed. Subsequently, kill ratio computation processing every defect computes a kill ratio every defect using defect map data and kill ratio computation data. Subsequently, kill ratio computation processing every chip computes a kill ratio every LSI chip using the kill ratio every defect. Subsequently, yield loss computation processing computes a yield loss of the defect map data using the kill ratio every chip and yield loss output processing outputs the computation result.

Inspection system, inspection apparatus, inspection program, and production method of semiconductor devices

An inspection system comprises an inspection machine for inspecting a work which is processed in one of the manufacturing processes of a manufacturing line and an analysis system for outputting an inspection history list obtained by making calculations from the inspected result. The inspection history list shows a matrix of first information as the inspection processes in which the work is inspected or the manufacturing processes corresponding to the inspection processes in which the work is inspected and second information as to the works inspected by the inspection machine.

Inspection system and method for manufacturing electronic devices using the inspection system

An analysis method includes one or more inspection steps for inspecting defects on a wafer, including an electrical inspection an step for inspecting electrical function of dies of the wafer, a determination step for determining whether each die is a good die or a bad die by using results obtained in the electrical inspection step, a calculation step for calculating the yield of dies without defects by using results obtained in the determination step, and an output step for outputting a result of the calculation step.

Electric device inspection method and electric device inspection system

A method and apparatus is disclosed for detecting a pattern image of each of a plurality of patterns on the surface of an object. Light emitted from either a light source including a wide wavelength or a light source including a plurality of monowavelengths is applied to the object. The object includes a layered structure having a plurality of layers, wherein at least a part of an uppermost layer of the object is optically transparent. Spectral illumination intensity characteristics of the light emitted from the light source is varied, depending on information about both the layered structure of the object, and a material of the object to obtain a desired spectral illumination intensity, and a pattern image of each of patterns is detected as either a one-dimensional or a two-dimensional image based on light reflected from the object.

Pattern detecting method, pattern detecting apparatus, projection

A defect inspection method and apparatus detect a defect which exists on the surface of a protection layer or a defect which exists in the protection layer and scatters the light on its surface, through the detection of the light which is derived from an illumination light and reflected on the protection layer surface and the light which is derived from a slit-formed illumination light and scattered in the area between the position where the light is incident to the transparent protection layer and the position where the surface of an element underneath the transparent protection layer is illuminated. An image process, which images two elements having the same appearance and compares the images, thereby to reduce inconsistent components emerging in portions other than a defective portion, is conducted through imaging under the bright field illumination and bright/dark field combined illumination, and the images are rendered the minimum filtering process based on 3-by-3 pixels and the defect judgement process based on comparison.

Method and apparatus for the inspection of defects

A method for producing a thin film multilayer substrate having a base substrate, and, which a plurality of conductor pattern layers superposed thereon through dielectric layers therebetween comprises the steps of: optically detecting the uppermost conductor pattern layer whenever the conductor pattern layer is formed on the base substrate; inspecting an absence and/or presence of a fault of the conductor pattern layer; and repairing a faulty portion in accordance with fault position data detected by the inspecting. According to this method, it is possible to enhance a production yield of relatively large size of thin film multilayer substrates which needs a relatively small amount of production at a high production cost, for mounting LSI chips thereon.

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Hayama, Japan

Hisafumi Iwata