Kla Tencor Corporation

Olivier Moreau

Ajay Gupta

Thanh Huy Ha

Arpit Yati

Arun Lobo

Arpit Jain

Kumar Raja

Hemanta Kumar Roy

Methods and systems for determining overlay error between different patterned features of a design printed on a wafer in a multi-patterning step process are provided. For multi-patterning step designs, the design for a first patterning step is used as a reference and designs for each of the remaining patterning steps are synthetically shifted until the synthetically shifted designs have the best global alignment with the entire image based on global image-to-design alignment. The final synthetic shift of each design for each patterning step relative to the design for the first patterning step provides a measurement of relative overlay error between any two features printed on the wafer using multi-patterning technology.

Determining multi-patterning step overlay error

A technique to identify non-visual defects, such as SEM non-visual defects (SNVs), includes generating an image of a layer of a wafer, evaluating at least one attribute of the image using a classifier, and identifying the non-visual defects on the layer of the wafer. A controller can be configured to identify the non-visual defects using the classifier. This controller can communicate with a defect review tool, such as a scanning electron microscope (SEM).

Range-based real-time scanning electron microscope non-visual binner

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Olivier Moreau