Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi-high-technologies Corporation

Other

Hitachi Tokyo Electronics Co., Ltd.

Renesas Technology Corp.

Mari Nozoe

Takashi Hiroi

Hiroyuki Shinada

Maki Tanaka

Yasutsugu Usami

Aritoshi Sugimoto

Masahiro Watanabe

Atsuko Takafuji

Hidetoshi Nishiyama

Asahiro Kuni

Haruo Yoda

Kenji Watanabe

Hiroshi Morioka

Yusuke Yajima

Katsuhiro Kuroda

Yasuhiko Nara

Shunji Maeda

Yutaka Kaneko

Hiroshi Miyai

Kazuhisa Machida

Katsuya Sugiyama

Chie Shishido

Hisaya Murakoshi

Yuji Takagi

Hitoshi Kubota

Takanori Ninomiya

Taku Ninomiya

Kimiaki Ando

Yukio Matsuyama

Kazushi Yoshimura

Hiroshi Tooyama

Tadao Ino

Kohichi Hayakawa

Maki Ito

Kaoru Umemura

Masaki Hasegawa

Shigeaki Hijikata

Koji Abe

Yoichiro Neo

Hiroshi Makino

Yuko Sasaki

Kenji Tanimoto

Zhaohui Cheng

Hideaki Doi

Mitsuo Suga

Yuji Kasai

Hiroyuki Shinoda

Yasuhiro Yoshitake

Masataka Shiba

Seiji Ishikawa

Momoyo Enyama

Fumio Mizuno

Toshimitsu Hamada

Seiji Isogai

Ikuo Suzuki

Isao Miyazaki

Jun Nakazato

Miyako Matsui

Yuichi Ohyama

Hikaru Koyama

Yoshiharu Shigyo

Masami Ikota

Makoto Ariga

Keiichi Saiki

Tetsuji Yokouchi

Terushige Asakawa

Hidekuni Sugimoto

Mitsugu Sato

Muneyuki Fukuda

Makoto Suzuki

Hiroya Ohta

Yusuke Ominami

Yasuhiro Gunji

Masanari Koguchi

Ryuichi Funatsu

Ruriko Tsuneta

Yasunori Goto

Yoshikazu Inada

Mitsuru Okamura

Hiroya Ota

Kenjirou Yamamoto

Provided is a charged particle beam applied apparatus for observing a sample, provided with: a beam-forming section that forms a plurality of charged particle beams on a sample; an energy control unit that controls the incident energy of the plurality of charged particle beams that are irradiated onto the sample; a beam current control unit that controls the beam current of the plurality of charged particle beams that are irradiated onto the sample; and a beam arrangement control unit that controls the arrangement in which the plurality of charged particle beams is irradiated onto the sample. The beam-forming section includes a beam splitting electrode, a lens array upper electrode, a lens array middle electrode, a lens array lower electrode and a movable stage, and functions as the beam current control unit or the beam arrangement control unit through selection, by the movable stage, of a plurality of aperture pattern sets.

Charged particle beam applied apparatus, and irradiation method

An electron beam apparatus equipped with a review function of a semiconductor wafer includes a scanning electron microscope to obtain image information of a semiconductor wafer, and an information processing apparatus to process the image information. The information processing apparatus includes a data input unit to receive positional information of a defect on the wafer, a storage for storing a plurality of image information of a position on the wafer corresponding to the positional information, and an image processing unit that retrieves any of the plurality of image information, and classifies the retrieved image information corresponding to the positional information depending on the type of defect.

Method of inspecting pattern and inspecting instrument

Disclosed is a charged particle beam device, wherein multibeam secondary electron detectors () and a single beam detector () are provided, and under the control of a system control unit (), an optical system control circuit () controls a lens and a beam selecting diaphragm () and switches the electrooptical conditions between those for multibeam mode and those for single beam mode, thereby one charged particle beam device can be operated as a multibeam charged particle device and a single beam charged particle device by switching. Thus, observation conditions are flexibly changed in accordance with an object to be observed, and a sample can be observed with a high accuracy and high efficiency.

Charged particle beam device and sample observation method

Provided is a pattern inspection apparatus including: a charge formation means which forms charge on a surface of a substrate () by generating an electron beam from a second electron source () which is different from an electron source () which generates an electron beam before irradiating an electron beam (), a current measuring means () which measures a value of current flowing in the substrate while the charge is formed on the surface of the substrate by the charge formation means; and an adjustment means () which adjusts the charge formed by the charge formation means so that the value of the current measured by the current measuring means is a predetermined target value. Provided is also a pattern inspection method which uses the pattern inspection apparatus. Thus, it is possible to easily set an optimal condition of precharge executed before inspection of a pattern formed by a semiconductor apparatus manufacturing process and automatically inspection whether the precharge is good. Then, the inspection result is fed back to the operation afterward. This prevents lowering of the reliability of the inspection result and always enables a stable inspection.

Pattern check device and pattern check method

A circuit pattern inspection method and an apparatus therefore, in which the whole of a portion to be inspected of a sample to be inspected is made to be in a predetermined changed state, the portion to be inspected is irradiated with an image-forming high-density electron beam while scanning the electron beam, secondary charged particles are detected at a portion irradiated with the electron beam after a predetermined period of time from an instance when the electron beam is irradiated, an image is formed on the basis of the thus detected secondary charged particle signal, and the portion to be inspected is inspected by using the thus formed image.

Method and apparatus for inspecting integrated circuit pattern

Electron beam is irradiated to a wafer in the midst of steps at predetermined intervals by a plurality of times under a condition in which a junction becomes rearward bias and a difference in characteristic of a time period of alleviating charge in the rearward bias is monitored. As a result, charge is alleviated at a location where junction leakage is caused in a time period shorter than that of a normal portion and therefore, a potential difference is produced between the normal portion and a failed portion and is observed in a potential contrast image as a difference in brightness. By consecutively repeating operation of acquiring the image, executing an image processing in real time and storing a position and brightness of the failed portion, the automatic inspection of a designated region can be executed. Information of image, brightness and distribution of the failed portion is preserved and outputted automatically after inspection.

Secondary electrons and back scattered electrons generated by irradiating a wafer to be inspected such as a semiconductor wafer with a charged particle beam are detected by a detector. A signal proportional to the number of detected electrons is generated, and an inspection image is formed on the basis of the signal. On the other hand, in consideration of a current value and irradiation energy of a charged particle beam, an electric field on the surface of the inspection wafer, emission efficiency of the secondary electrons and back scattered electrons, and the like, an electric resistance and an electric capacitance are determined so as to coincide with those in the inspection image. In a state where a difference between a resistance value in a normal portion and a resistance value in a defective portion is sufficiently increased by using the charging generated by the irradiation of electron beams, an inspection is conducted to thereby detect a defect.

Inspection method and inspection system using charged particle beam

An electron beam system using a scanning electron microscope equipped with a function for controlling a charged state of a sample to be observed includes electron optics for obtaining image data of the scanning electron microscope, and a monitor that displays a relationship between an equation for determining a degree of separation of peaks which appear in a histogram obtained on a basis of the image data and at least one parameter among parameters for controlling the charged state of the sample. An optimized parameter for controlling the charged stage of the sample can be visually distinguished on the monitor.

A circuit pattern inspection method and an apparatus therefor, in which the whole of a portion to be inspected of a sample to be inspected is made to be in a predetermined charged state, the portion to be inspected is irradiated with an image-forming high-density electron beam while scanning the electron beam, secondary charged particles are detected at a portion irradiated with the electron beam after a predetermined period of time from an instance when the electron beam is irradiated, an image is formed on the basis of the thus detected secondary charged particle signal, and the portion to be inspected is inspected by using the thus formed image.

An apparatus for inspecting a sample using a scanning electron microscope includes a sample stage, a first electron-optical system to scan an electron beam of a first beam current on the sample, a second electron-optical system to scan an electron beam of a second beam current smaller than the first beam current on the sample, a mechanism to move the sample stage, a detector provided in each of the first and second electron-optical systems to detect a secondary electron. The first electron-optical system is operable in a first mode and the second electron-optical system is operable in a second mode with higher resolution than that of the first mode. In the first mode, the sample is observed while the sample stage is moved continuously, and in the second mode, the sample is observed by detecting a secondary electron using the detector while the sample stage is held stationary.

Method of inspecting a circuit pattern and inspecting instrument

When the electrode potential of a charge control electrode above a wafer is reduced, image brightness is reduced. A point of change in the image brightness is a switching point between a positively charged state of the image and a negatively charged state of the image, showing the weakly charged state of the image. By setting this point of change as an inspecting condition, the amount of electric charges on the surface of the wafer can be reduced, and stable wafer inspection can be performed. It is estimated that an applied voltage Vin FIG.corresponds to the point of the change and is roughly included in the voltage range of a region enclosed by a broken line in the vicinity of the applied voltage V. Within this voltage range, the influence of charge on an inspection under the inspecting condition can be reduced.

Method and apparatus for inspecting patterns

A scanning electron microscope or inspection system includes a sample stage on which a sample such as a wafer is loaded, an electro optical unit to scan an electron beam to the sample, and a charge control electrode to which voltage for controlling a charged state of the sample is applied. Further, there is provided an ultraviolet irradiation device for irradiating ultraviolet light onto the sample, a retarding electric source to apply a retarding voltage to the sample stage or the sample, and a detection unit for detecting secondary electrons or backscattering electrons generated in response to the scan of the electron beam. A monitoring unit for displaying an image of the sample or an inspection unit for inspection of the sample is provided which effects display or inspection based on signals from the detection unit.

Inspection method and apparatus using charged particle beam

An inspection method and an inspection apparatus using an electron beam enabling more detailed and quantitative evaluation at a high throughput level. The method comprises the steps of irradiating, based on previously prepared information concerning a defect position on the surface of a sample, the defect and its vicinity with an electron beam a plurality of times at predetermined intervals; detecting an electron signal secondarily generated from the sample surface by the electron beam; imaging an electron signal detected by the previously specified n-th or later electron beam irradiation; and measuring the resistance or a leakage amount of the defective portion of the sample surface in accordance with the degree of charge relaxation by monitoring the charge relaxation state of the sample surface based on the electron beam image information.

Inspection method and inspection apparatus using electron beam

The present invention relates to detection of defects with simple specification of the coordinates, in the inspection of an object having a plurality of patterns in which a portion having the two-dimensional repetition and portions having the repetition only in the X direction and in the Y direction are mixedly present. The cross comparison between a notice point and comparison points, for example which are repetitive pitches away from the notice point, is carried out, and only the portion having the difference which can be found out with any of the comparison points is extracted as a defect candidate, which results in that the portion having the two-dimensional repetition as well as the portion having the repetition only in the X direction or in the Y direction can be inspected. As a result, while the portion, such as an isolated point, having no repetition both in the X direction and in the Y direction is extracted as the defect candidate, the defect candidate is not treated as the defect in the case where the defect candidate of interest occurs regularly in a plurality of objects to be inspected, so that such a defect candidate is excluded to extract only a true defect.

Method and system for inspecting a pattern

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Hino, Japan

Mari Nozoe