Globalfoundries Inc.

Nova Measuring Instruments Ltd.

Nova Corporation

Taher E Kagalwala

Alok Vaid

Matthew J Sendelbach

Sridhar Mahendrakar

Paul Isbester

Cornel Bozdog

Shay Yogev

Yoav Etzioni

Narender N Rana

Yunlin Zhang

Mainul Hossain

A process control method for manufacturing semiconductor devices, including determining a quality metric of a production semiconductor wafer by comparing production scatterometric spectra of a production structure of the production wafer with reference scatterometric spectra of a reference structure of reference semiconductor wafers, the production structure corresponding to the reference structure, the reference spectra linked by machine learning to a reference measurement value of the reference structure, determining a process control parameter value (PCPV) of a wafer processing step, the PCPV determined based on measurement of the production wafer and whose contribution to the PCPV is weighted with a first predefined weight based on the quality metric, and based on a measurement of a different wafer and whose contribution to the PCPV is weighted with a second predefined weight based on the quality metric, and controlling, with the PCPV, the processing step during fabrication.

Process control of semiconductor fabrication based on spectra quality metrics

Measuring SRAM structures having FinFET transistors by obtaining, on a production semiconductor wafer, spectra of a SRAM production structure including FinFET fins and gates, identifying SRAM reference structure spectra corresponding to the spectra, the reference structure from measuring, on a reference semiconductor wafer, a reference structure including a layout of FinFET fins having gates, injecting, into an OCD model of the production structure, fin target parameter values, corresponding to the identified reference structure spectra, from measuring, on the reference wafer, a fin target including a layout of exposed FinFET fins lacking gates similar or identical to the reference structure layout, correspondence between the fin target parameter values and the reference structure spectra previously identified by ML, and determining measurement values for the FinFET gates of the production structure by fitting reference spectra associated with the production structure in the OCD model to the production structure spectra.

Measuring complex structures in semiconductor fabrication

A measurement method and system are presented for in-line measurements of one or more parameters of thin films in structures progressing on a production line. First measured data and second measured data are provided from multiple measurements sites on the thin film being measured, wherein the first measured data corresponds to first type measurements from a first selected set of a relatively small number of the measurement sites, and the second measured data corresponds to second type optical measurements from a second set of significantly higher number of the measurements sites. The first measured data is processed for determining at least one value of at least one parameter of the thin film in each of the measurement sites of said first set. Such at least one parameter value is utilized for interpreting the second measured data, thereby obtaining data indicative of distribution of values of said at least one parameter within said second set of measurement sites.

Measurement system and method for measuring in thin films

Methods of the present disclosure can include a method for estimating a spatial characteristic of an integrated circuit (IC), the method comprising: calculating a correlation between a dimension of a photoresist layer and exposure to a scanning electron microscope (SEM) for at least one reference IC pattern in the photoresist layer, the correlation providing a relationship between the dimension of the photoresist and the spatial characteristic, wherein the calculating is based on: an SEM image of the at least one reference IC pattern produced from reducing the dimension of the photoresist layer with the SEM from an initial value to a reduced value, the initial value of the dimension, and the reduced value of the dimension; and estimating the spatial characteristic of a target IC based on the correlation.

System and method for estimating spatial characteristics of integrated circuits

Growing community of inventors

Wappingers Falls, NY, United States of America

Taher E Kagalwala