Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi-high-technologies Corporation

Ruriko Tsuneta

Masanari Koguchi

Hiroshi Kakibayashi

Kuniyasu Nakamura

Takahito Hashimoto

Hideki Kikuchi

Hideo Todokoro

Hiroyuki Kobayashi

Kazutaka Tsuji

Katsuhiro Kuroda

Shigeto Isakozawa

Yasuhiro Mitsui

Mikio Ichihashi

Kensuke Sekihara

Tatsuo Makishima

Isao Nagaoki

Hiromi Inada

Jun Motoike

Junichi Tanaka

Mitsugu Sato

Muneyuki Fukuda

Mari Nozoe

Hiroki Kawada

Hideo Kashima

Zhaohui Cheng

Takeyoshi Ohashi

Toshie Yaguchi

Tohru Ando

Junzo Azuma

Takafumi Yotsuji

Tomoko Sekiguchi

Seiko Hitomi

Shiano Ono

In the present invention, at the time of measuring, using a CD-SEM, a length of a resist that shrinks when irradiated with an electron beam, in order to highly accurately estimate a shape and dimensions of the resist before shrink, a shrink database with respect to various patterns is previously prepared, said shrink database containing cross-sectional shape data obtained prior to electron beam irradiation, a cross-sectional shape data group and a CD-SEM image data group, which are obtained under various electron beam irradiation conditions, and models based on such data and data groups, and a CD-SEM image of a resist pattern to be measured is obtained (S), then, the CD-SEM image and data in the shrink database are compared with each other (S), and the shape and dimensions of the pattern before the shrink are estimated and outputted (S).

Method for estimating shape before shrink and CD-SEM apparatus

The electric charged particle beam microscope includes an electric charged particle source; a condenser lens converging electric charged particles emitted from the electric charged particle source on a specimen; a deflector scanning the converged electric charged particles over the specimen; a control unit of the deflector; a specimen stage on which the specimen is mounted; a detector detecting the electric charged particles; a computer forming an image from a control signal from the deflector and an output signal from the detector; and a display part connected with the computer. The control unit of the deflector can change the scan rate of the electric charged particles. A first rate scan image is obtained at a first rate and a second rate scan image is obtained at a second rate slower than the first rate.

Electric charged particle beam microscope and electric charged particle beam microscopy

An apparatus that can capture a rotation series of images of an observation area within a range of &#x2212;180&#xb0; to +180&#xb0; around the x axis thereof, and can capture a rotation series of images of the observation area within a range of &#x2212;180&#xb0; to +180&#xb0; around the y axis thereof. The apparatus includes a sample mounting base having at its tip portion a mounting portion for mounting a sample thereon; a rotating jig having a mounting base holding portion that holds the sample mounting base; a sample holding rod that includes a holding portion that holds the rotating jig; a first rotation control unit that applies, to the sample holding rod, a first rotation within a range of &#x2212;180&#xb0; to +180&#xb0; with the extending direction of the sample holding rod as the axis thereof; and a second rotation control unit that applies, to the rotating jig, a second rotation within a range of &#xb1;45&#xb0; or more with the direction orthogonal to the rotation axis of the first rotation as the axis thereof, the sample mounting base being in a conical or polygonally conical form.

Charged particle beam microscope, sample holder for charged particle beam microscope, and charged particle beam microscopy

A specified position in an array structure in which a reference pattern is displayed repetitively through reference pattern counting is identified. In an array structure image, the pattern detection estimating area generated from a starting point, the address of the starting point, and a unit vector are compared with a pattern detected position found in pattern matching with the reference pattern image, to execute pattern counting while determining correct detection, oversights, wrong detection, etc. Array structure images are photographed sequentially while moving the visual field with the use of an image shifting deflector to continue the pattern counting started at the starting point to identify the ending point specified with an address. If the ending point is not reached only with use of the image shifting deflector, the visual field moving range of the image shifting deflector is moved with use of a specimen stage.

Specified position identifying method and specified position measuring apparatus

In a specimen analyzing apparatus such as a transmission electron microscope for analyzing the structure, composition and electron state of an observing specimen in operation by applying external voltage to the specimen to be observed, a specimen support (mesh) including a mesh electrode connectable to external voltage applying portions of the specimen and a specimen holder including a specimen holder electrode connectable to the mesh electrode and current inlet terminals as well are provided. Voltage is applied externally of the specimen analyzing apparatus to the external voltage applying portions of the specimen through the medium of the specimen holder electrode and mesh electrode.

Multi-part specimen holder with conductive patterns

An electric charged particle beam microscope is provided in which a specimen movement due to a specimen rotation is classified into a repeatable movement and a non-repeatable movement, a model of movement is determined for the repeatable movement, a range of movement is determined for the non-repeatable movement, the repeatable movement is corrected on the basis of the movement model through open-loop and the non-repeatable movement is corrected under a condition set on the basis of the range of movement.

Electric charged particle beam microscope and microscopy

An electric charged particle beam microscope measures a geometric distortion at an arbitrary magnification with high precision, and corrects the geometric distortion. A geometric distortion at a first magnification is measured as an absolute distortion based on a standard specimen having a cyclic structure. A microscopic structure specimen is photographed at a geometric distortion measured first magnification and at a geometric distortion unmeasured second magnification. The image at the first magnification is equally transformed to the second magnification to generate a scaled image. The geometric distortion at the second magnification is measured as a relative distortion based on the scaled image. The absolute distortion at the second magnification is obtained on the basis of the absolute distortion at the first magnification and the relative distortion at the second magnification. Subsequently, the second magnification is replaced with the first magnification, and the relative distortion measurement is repeated.

Electric charged particle beam microscopy and electric charged particle beam microscope

Magnification errors are reduced in the required range of magnification in electric charged particle beam application apparatuses and critical dimension measurement instruments. To achieve this, a first image, whose magnification for the specimen is actually measured, is recorded, a second image, whose magnification for the specimen is unknown, is recorded, and the magnification of the second image for the first image is analyzed by using image analysis. Thereby, the magnification of the second image for the specimen is actually measured. Then, magnification is actually measured in the whole range of magnification by repeating the magnification analysis described above by taking the second image as the first image. Actually measuring the magnification of images for the specimen in the whole range of magnification and calibrating the same permits a reduction of magnification errors by a digit.

Electric charged particle beam microscopy, electric charged particle beam microscope, critical dimension measurement and critical dimension measurement system

A scanning transmission electron microscope for scanning a primary electron beam on a sample, detecting a transmitted electron from the sample by a detector, and forming an image of the transmitted electron. The scanning transmission electron microscope includes an electron-optics system which enables switching back the transmitted electron beam to the optical axis by a predetermined quantity, and a determining unit for determining the quantity based on a displacement of the transmitted electron with respect to the detector caused by the scanning of the primary electron beam.

Scanning transmission electron microscope and scanning transmission electron microscopy

A scanning transmission electron microscope which enhances correction accuracy of a de-scanning coil for canceling a transmitted-electron-beam position change on an electron detector. Here, this transmitted-electron-beam position change appears in accompaniment with a primary-electron-beam position change on a specimen caused by a scanning coil. First, control over the scanning coil is digitized. Moreover, while being synchronized with a digital control signal resulting from this digitization, values in a de-scanning table registered in a FM() are outputted to the de-scanning coil. Here, the de-scanning table is created as follows: Diffraction images before and after activating the scanning coil and the de-scanning coil are photographed using a camera. Then, based on a result acquired by analyzing a resultant displacement quantity of the diffraction images by the image processing, the de-scanning table is created.

The purpose of the present invention is to inspect the position, number, and size of fine defects in a variety of solid state materials, including a semiconductor device and metallic materials, with a high spatial resolution of nanometer order. The positron irradiation function is installed in the converged electron beam apparatus. The defect location information is obtained from the converged electron beam location information, and the number and size of defects are obtained from the detected information of &#x3b3;-rays created by pair annihilation of electrons and positrons, and this two-dimensional distribution information is displayed in the monitor. Information on ultra-fine defects in a crystal can be provided with high-speed and high-resolution, and nondestructively in the case of a semiconductor wafer.

Defect inspection instrument and positron beam apparatus

The present invention provides an analysis of displacement by calculating the phase variance image P' (k, l) between Fourier transformed images of paired images S(n, m) and S(n, m) to determine the center of gravity of &#x3b4; peak appearing on the invert Fourier transform image of the images. The present invention provides numerous advantages such as a precision of displacement analysis of a fraction of pixel to thereby allow to improve the precision of focal analysis, or reduced number of pixels required to achieve the same precision, evaluation of reliability of the analysis by using the &#x3b4; peak intensity, influence of varying background reduced by using a phase variance component. The improved performance by the present invention allows any operator skilled or not to achieve a best focusing.

Electron microscope

By use of charged particle beam images picked up in different conditions, a positional displacement caused by parallax is analyzed, and an optics of an apparatus for charged particle beam microscopy is corrected automatically. An analysis method using phase difference of Fourier transform images and having analytic accuracy lower than that for one pixel is adopted for the displacement analysis. In addition, a degree of coincidence between images calculated in this analysis method is used as a criterion for evaluating the reliability of an analysis result. Since the analysis method based on parallax is low in specimen dependency, the operation range is expanded. In addition, by adopting a high-accuracy displacement analysis method, the apparatus correction accuracy is improved by one digit. A malfunction preventing flow is added using the degree of coincidence as a judgement criterion. Thus, the apparatus can deal with unmanned operation. In addition, the degree of coincidence can be used as a monitor of inspection states or a record of states in an inspection apparatus.

Method and apparatus for charged particle beam microscopy

An autoadjusting electron microscope in which an image processor derives a third image constituting an analysis image from first and second images of a specimen by Fourier-transforming the first and second images to produce Fourier-transformed first and second images, computing a phase variant image from the Fourier-transformed first and second images, and Fourier-transforming or inverse Fourier-transforming the phase variant image to obtain the third image. A computer determines an amount of displacement between the first image and the second image based on a peak appearing in the third image. An identifier determines whether a consistency between the first image and the second image is within a predetermined range based on a magnitude of the peak appearing in the third image. A transformer transforms results obtained by the computer and the identifier into an amount of defocus of an electron lens relative to the specimen.

Autoadjusting electron microscope

3-dimensional observation on the atomic arrangement and atomic species in a thin-film specimen are carried out at high speed and accuracy by an electron microscope which measures electrons emitted at high angle from the specimen. A scanning transmission electron microscope has an electron detection device comprising a scintillator converting electrons detected thereby to photons, a photoconductive-film converting photons from the scintillator detected thereby to c.a. 1000 times as many electron-hole pairs as these photons.

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Fuchu, Japan

Ruriko Tsuneta