Nuflare Technology, Inc.

Makoto Yabe

Takafumi Inoue

Hiroteru Akiyama

Hideo Tsuchiya

Nobutaka Kikuiri

Manabu Isobe

A pattern inspection apparatus includes an optical image acquisition mechanism to acquire an optical image of each of a plurality of regions on the inspection substrate where a pattern is formed, a plurality of comparison circuits to individually compare the optical image with a reference image corresponding to the optical image, an abnormality determination circuit to determine, based on comparison results, whether there is a region having an inspection abnormality in the plurality of regions, a malfunction diagnosis circuit to diagnose whether a comparison circuit that performed comparison for the region determined to have the inspection abnormality in the plurality of regions has a malfunction, and an assignment processing circuit to individually assign regions of the plurality of regions where comparison is to be performed to comparison circuits that are not diagnosed as malfunctions, and to exclude a comparison circuit diagnosed as a malfunction from the region assignment target.

Pattern inspection apparatus and pattern inspection method

An inspection method includes a rough alignment process of acquiring optical images of first and second patterns previously set to confirm whether a position misalignment amount in a rotation direction of a sample with respect to an X or Y direction is equal to or smaller than a first acceptable value, and conforming whether the position misalignment amount is equal to or smaller than the first acceptable value on the basis of an acquisition result, and a fine alignment process of acquiring optical images of third patterns positioned on different corners of a rectangular frame constituted of four sides along the X or Y direction on an optical image of the sample and rotating a stage until a position misalignment amount detected based on the optical images of the third patterns becomes equal to or smaller than a second acceptable value being smaller than the first acceptable value.

Inspection method and inspection apparatus

An inspection method comprising, virtually dividing a sample, in which a plurality of chip patterns are formed, into a plurality of strip-shaped stripes along a predetermined direction to acquire an optical image of the chip pattern in each of the stripes, performing filtering based on design data of the chip pattern to produce a reference image corresponding to the optical image, comparing the chip pattern using a die-to-database method and comparing a repetitive pattern portion in the chip pattern using a cell method, obtaining at least one of a dimension difference and a dimension ratio between a pattern of the optical image and a pattern of the reference image compared to the pattern of the optical image by the die-to-database method; and obtaining a dimension distribution of the plurality of chip patterns from at least one of the dimension difference and the dimension ratio.

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Yokohama, Japan

Makoto Yabe