Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Comp. Ltd.

Shih-Jui Huang

Hsin-Chang Lee

Ting-Hao Hsu

ShinAn Ku

A method of inspecting an outer surface of a mask pod includes moving a stage holding a mask pod such that the stage stops at each location of a plurality of locations under an outer surface of the mask pod for a predefined amount of time. At each location of the plurality of locations, the method further includes directing a stream of air to the outer surface of the mask pod, capturing an image of scattered air from each location of the plurality of locations of the outer surface of the mask pod, and determining a number of particles in the scattered air as a sampled number of particles based on the captured image. The method also includes generating a map of particles on the outer surface of the mask pod based on the sampled number of particles at each of the plurality of locations.

High throughput and high position accurate method for particle inspection of mask pods

In a method of inspecting an outer surface of a mask pod, a stream of air is directed at a first location of a plurality of locations on the outer surface. One or more particles are removed by the directed stream of air from the first location on the outer surface. Scattered air from the first location of the outer surface is extracted and a number of particles in the extracted scattered air is determined as a sampled number of particles at the first location. The mask pod is moved and the stream of air is directed at other locations of the plurality of locations to determine the sampled number of particles in extracted scattered air at the other locations. A map of the particles on the outer surface of the mask pod is generated based on the sampled number of particles at the plurality of locations.

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Hsinchu, Taiwan

Shih-Jui Huang