Kla-Tencor Technologies Corporation

Kla Tencor Corporation

Kla Corporation

Laurence S Hordon

Gian Francesco Lorusso

Nikolai N Chubun

Christopher Sears

Xinrong Jiang

Alan D Brodie

Douglas K Masnaghetti

Srinivas Vedula

Luca Grella

Alexander Jozef Gubbens

Amir Azordegan

Oscar G Florendo

Daniel Bui

Kevin Cummings

Martin Brutsch

David Goodstein

Robert Anthony Watts

Jason C Yee

Weidong Liu

Takuji Tada

Sander Josef Gubbens

The present disclosure provides a magnetic immersion electron gun and a method of generating an electron beam using a magnetic immersion electron gun. The electron gun includes a magnetic lens forming a magnetic field, a cathode tip disposed in the magnetic field, and a multi-filament heater configured to directly heat the cathode tip to emit electrons through the magnetic lens. The multi-filament heater includes a first filament connected at each end to first and second positive terminals of a power source and a second filament connected at each end to first and second negative terminals of the power source. The first positive terminal, the second positive terminal, the first negative terminal, and the second negative terminal are arranged alternately around the cathode tip such that the first filament and the second filament intersect at the cathode tip and a resultant magnetic force applied to the cathode tip is reduced.

Magnetic immersion electron gun

Extractors and extractor systems minimize the generation of secondary electrons which interact with and degrade the primary electron beam. This can improve the performance of an electron beam system, such as a scanning electron microscope. The extractor may include a frustoconical aperture that widens as distance from the source of the electron beam increases. The entrance into the frustoconical aperture also can include a curved edge.

Extractor electrode for electron source

One embodiment relates to an electron beam apparatus for automated imaging of a substrate surface. An electron source is configured to emit electrons, and a gun lens is configured to focus the electrons emitted by the electron source so as to form an electron beam. A condenser lens system is configured to receive the electron beam and to reduce its numerical aperture to an ultra-low numerical aperture. An objective lens is configured to focus the ultra-low numerical aperture beam onto the substrate surface. Other embodiments are also disclosed.

Method and apparatus for aberration-insensitive electron beam imaging

A highly accurate technique for inspecting semiconductor devices is described. The technique involves utilizing multiple sets of measurement data obtained by a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to determine the dimensional parameters of a semiconductor device. The SEM collects each set of data from a different angular orientation with respect to the device. The dimensional parameters of the semiconductor device are determined by analyzing the relationship between the SEM inspection angle and the collected data sets. Various configurations of an SEM can be used to implement this invention. For instance an electron beam inspection system of the present invention can have at least two sets of deflectors for guiding the electron beam, a swiveling specimen stage, and/or a set of detectors set about the specimen at different angular orientations.

SEM profile and surface reconstruction using multiple data sets

The present invention pertains to a technique of electron spectroscopic imaging that is easy to perform and cost effective. This technique allows for spatial resolution enhancement of electron beam semiconductor inspection systems (for example a critical dimension scanning electron microscope CD-SEM) as well as to obtain useful physical or chemical information on the investigated specimen. The technique involves a high pass energy filter that is alternately set, or multiplexed, at two energies. For an inspected area on a specimen, the detected intensity level at the higher energy setting is subtracted from the intensity level at the lower energy setting. The obtained differential value corresponds to electrons having energy within the range of the first and second filter settings. This obtained differential value is used to generate an image of the specimen for inspection purposes.

Energy filter multiplexing

A scanning electron microscope (SEM) is calibrated for the effects of local charging on a measured critical dimension (CD) of a wafer by first calibrating the microscope with respect to a calibration wafer with a known CD. Local charging on a wafer may be measured as a local landing energy (LLE) so that a scale factor based on a ratio of LLEs for the measurement wafer and a calibration wafer is used to correct a measured CD for the measurement wafer.

Calibration of a scanning electron microscope

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Mountain View, CA, United States of America

Laurence S Hordon