Other

Applied Materials, Inc.

Keysight Technologies, Inc.

Kurt Stephen Werder

Jeffrey S Sullivan

William A Eckes

Lawrence Muray

Herbert A Waggener

James P Spallas

William Daniel Meisburger

An apparatus for inspecting a substrate is described. The apparatus includes an X-Y stage that supports a substrate to be inspected and is operable to move a substrate supported thereby in X and Y directions; and an imaging system including a plurality of beam columns operable to irradiate regions of a substrate supported by the X-Y stage with beams of energy, respectively, discrete from one another. Respective ones of the beam columns are movable relative to others of the electron beam columns.

Imaging apparatus having a plurality of movable beam columns, and method of inspecting a plurality of regions of a substrate intended to be substantially identical

Improved systems, apparatus, and methods for detecting positions of moving stages and a reference position of a beam column are provided. For some embodiments, independent discrete interferometers may be utilized for distance measurements in each axis, rather than a cumbersome monolithic multi-axis interferometer utilized in conventional systems.

Multi-axis interferometer system using independent, single axis interferometers

An electron beam apparatus is provided with a support mechanism upon which X and Y axis interferometers are mounted within a vacuum chamber. By employing a flat ring of a low coefficient of thermal expansion glass ceramic composition affixed beneath the chamber upper wall and to which the interferometers are mounted, the normal extremes of vacuum and heat as existing within the chamber are resisted to insure of a fixed horizontal alignment of the beams as projected by the interferometers during operation of the apparatus. Flexure mounts are included for the interferometer ring together with a magnetic shield disposed adjacent the ring undersurface. Stability of workpieces is further enhanced by the use of the same glass ceramic composition in the formation of the carrier and its reference plate of the apparatus.

Stabilizing support mechanism for electron beam apparatus

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Pleasanton, CA, United States of America

Kurt Stephen Werder