Vistec Semiconductor Systems Gmbh

Kla Tencor Corporation

Slawomir Czerkas

Frank Laske

Mark Wagner

Klaus Rinn

Wolfgang Fricke

Mohammad Mehdi Daneshpanah

In a method for controlling the positioning of patterns on a substrate in a manufacturing process at least one registration measurement is conducted with a registration tool on at least one pattern formed in at least one layer on the substrate by a previous process step of the manufacturing process. From the registration measurement a position of the at least one pattern in a coordinate system is determined. The determined position of the at least one pattern is fed into an automatic process control of a manufacturing system for controlling a setup of the manufacturing system for a subsequent process step of the manufacturing process. The manufacturing process may be a wafer manufacturing process with a silicon substrate. Complementary information may be collected in addition to performing the registration measurement and fed to the automatic process control. The process steps may for example include lithography steps, etching steps, layer deposition.

Method and computer program product for controlling the positioning of patterns on a substrate in a manufacturing process

The invention discloses a method for measuring positions of structures on a mask and thereby determining mask manufacturing errors. It is shown, that from a plurality measurement sites an influence of an optical proximity effect on a position measurement of structures on the mask, is determined with a metrology tool. A rendered image of the data representation of the structures is obtained. Additionally, at least one optical image of the pattern within the area on the mask is captured with the imaging system of the metrology tool. The field of view of the metrology tool is approximately identical to the size of the selected area of the mask design data. Finally, a residual is determined, which shows the manufacturing based proximity effect.

Method for measuring positions of structures on a mask and thereby determining mask manufacturing errors

A method for determining the lateral correction as a function of the substrate topology and/or the geometry of the substrate holder is disclosed. The substrate is placed on a measuring stage traversable in the X coordinate direction and Y coordinate direction, which carries the substrate to be measured. The substrate is supported on at least three support points which define a plane. An apparatus is provided for determining the position of a plurality of positions on the surface of the substrate in the in the X, Y and Z coordinate directions. The substrate is tiltable about an axis parallel to the X/Y plane, to enable the substrate to be measured in a tilted position.

Method for determining the systematic error in the measurement of positions of edges of structures on a substrate resulting from the substrate topology

A coordinate measuring machine is disclosed having an orientor automatically orienting a substrate associated therewith. A control and computing unit is further associated with the coordinate measuring machine, so that self-calibration may be performed on the basis of at least two different and automatically set orientations of the substrate.

Coordinate measuring machine and method for calibrating the coordinate measuring machine

A method for correcting the measured values of positions of structures () on a substrate () resulting from bending of a substrate () is disclosed. A plurality of geometric parameters of the substrate () are determined. A plurality of physical parameters of the substrate () are determined. A degree of bending is calculated individually for each substrate () on the basis of the obtained geometric parameters, the physical parameters and the position of the support points (). The measured position data of the structures () on the substrate () is corrected with the aid of each individually calculated degree of bending.

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Weilburg, Germany

Slawomir Czerkas