Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Nuflare Technology, Inc.

Kentaro Okuda

Hiromu Inoue

Hidenori Sato

Takeshi Fujiwara

Hiroyuki Ikeda

Shuichi Tamamushi

Takanao Touya

Eiji Sawa

Hiroyuki Tanizaki

Hiroshi Tsukada

Yosuke Okamoto

Takaki Hashimoto

A method and system for imaging an object to be inspected and obtaining an optical image; creating a reference image from design pattern data; preparing an inspection recipe including one or more templates and parameter settings necessary for the inspection; checking the pattern and the template against each other, and selecting the reference image which corresponds to the template; detecting first and second edges in the selected reference image in accordance with the parameter setting using determined coordinates as a reference; detecting first and second edges in the optical image, this optical image corresponds to the selected reference image; and determining an inspection value by acquiring the difference between the line width of the optical image and the reference image using the first edge and second edge of the reference image and the first edge and second edges of the optical image.

Inspection system and method for inspecting line width and/or positional errors of a pattern

According to one embodiment, a photomask includes a substrate, a film portion, a pattern, and a plurality of detection marks. The film portion is provided on a surface of the substrate. The film portion has a light transmittance lower than light transmittance of the substrate. The pattern is provided in a surface of the film portion. The pattern is configured to be transferred to a transfer target. The plurality of detection marks is provided in the film portion, with intensity of light transmitted through the detection marks being suppressed so as to suppress transfer the detection marks to the transfer target.

Photomask and method for manufacturing the same

The pattern edge direction in reference image data of an object to be examined is detected, the reference image data is differentiated using a differential operator in a direction along the pattern edge direction, and inspection image data obtained by picking up an image of the object to be inspected is differentiated using the differential operator in the direction along the pattern edge direction. The differential data obtained by the differential processing are compared with the inspection image data, and a pattern defect on the object to be inspected is detected based on the difference between these data.

Pattern defect inspection method and apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Kentaro Okuda