Ebara Corporation

Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Other

Nikon Corporation

Ulvac, Inc.

Tohru Satake

Nobuharu Noji

Mamoru Nakasuji

Takeshi Murakami

Masahiro Hatakeyama

Shoji Yoshikawa

Toshifumi Kimba

Tsutomu Karimata

Hirosi Sobukawa

Kenji Watanabe

Shin Oowada

Mutsumi Saito

Takao Kato

Yuichiro Yamazaki

Ichirota Nagahama

Muneki Hamashima

Takamitsu Nagai

Katsunori Ichiki

Kenichi Suematsu

Keiichi Tohyama

Toru Takagi

Ryo Tajima

Yutaka Tabe

Kazutoshi Nagai

Hideaki Hayashi

Kazuo Yamauchi

Yasushi Tohma

Shinta Kunitomo

Takanari Yasui

Kazuyoshi Sugihara

Hiroshi Nishimura

Naoto Kihara

Yotaro Hatamura

Hiroshi Sobukawa

Yukiharu Okubo

Masayuki Nakao

Yoshiaki Kohama

Atsushi Onishi

Juichi Ishiguro

Yoshinao Hirabayashi

Satoshi Mori

Matsutaro Miyamoto

Yuji Araki

Naoaki Ogure

Kuniaki Horie

Kenji Terao

Hiroshi Nagasaka

Momoko Kakutani

Eiichi Iijima

Guo Hua Shen

Toru Kaga

Yoshio Hatada

Tsutomi Karimata

Nabuharu Noji

Mitsumi Saito

Masahiro Hatakayama

Nobuhara Noji

A substrate is irradiated by primary electrons and secondary electrons generated from the substrate are detected by a detector. A reference die is placed on the stage to obtain a pattern matching template image including feature coordinates of the reference die. A pattern matching is performed with an arbitrary die in a row or column including the reference die using the template image to obtain feature coordinates of the arbitrary die. An angle of misalignment is calculated between the direction of the row or column including the reference die and one of the directions of movement of the substrate on the basis of the feature coordinates of the arbitrary die and those of the reference die. The stage is rotated to correct the angle of misalignment to conform the direction of the row or column including the reference die with the one of the directions of movement of the substrate.

Testing apparatus using charged particles and device manufacturing method using the testing apparatus

An electron beam apparatus for capturing images by deflecting a primary electron beam by a deflector to irradiate each of sub-visual fields which are formed by dividing an evaluation area on a sample surface, and detecting secondary electrons containing information on the sample surface in each of the sub-visual fields by a detecting device. The detecting device includes a plurality of unit detectors each including an area sensor, a bundle of optical fibers having one end coupled to a detection plane of the area sensor, and an FOP coated on the other end of the bundle of optical fibers and formed with a scintillator, on which a secondary electron beam emitted from the respective sub-visual field is focused. An electromagnetic deflector deflects the secondary electron beam each time the electron beam is irradiated to the next sub-visual field to move the secondary electron beams over the surfaces of the FOPs.

Electro-optical inspection apparatus using electron beam

An inspection apparatus by an electron beam comprises: an electron-optical devicehaving an electron-optical system for irradiating the object with a primary electron beam from an electron beam source, and a detector for detecting the secondary electron image projected by the electron-optical systems; a stage systemfor holding and moving the object relative to the electron-optical system; a mini-environment chamberfor supplying a clean gas to the object to prevent dust from contacting the object; a working chamberfor accommodating the stage device, the working chamber being controllable so as to have a vacuum atmosphere; at least two loading chambersdisposed between the mini-environment chamber and the working chamber, adapted to be independently controllable so as to have a vacuum atmosphere; and a loaderfor transferring the object to the stage system through the loading chambers.

Inspection system by charged particle beam and method of manufacturing devices using the system

A substrate inspection apparatus-(FIG.) of the present invention performs the following steps of: carrying a substrate 'S' to be inspected into an inspection chamber-; maintaining a vacuum in said inspection chamber; isolating said inspection chamber from a vibration; moving successively said substrate by means of a stage-with at least one degree of freedom; irradiating an electron beam having a specified width; helping said electron beam reach to a surface of said substrate via a primary electron optical system-; trapping secondary electrons emitted from said substrate via a secondary electron optical system-and guiding it to a detecting system-; forming a secondary electron image in an image processing system based on a detection signal of a secondary electron beam obtained by said detecting system; detecting a defective location in said substrate based on the secondary electron image formed by said image processing system; indicating and/or storing said defective location in said substrate by CPU-; and taking said completely inspected substrate out of the inspection chamber. Thereby, the defect inspection on the substrate can be performed successively with high level of accuracy and efficiency as well as with higher throughput.

Apparatus for inspection with electron beam, method for operating same, and method for manufacturing semiconductor device using former

An inspection apparatus by an electron beam comprises: an electron-optical devicehaving an electron-optical system for irradiating the object with a primary electron beam from an electron beam source, and a detector for detecting the secondary electron image projected by the electron-optical system; a stage systemfor holding and moving the object relative to the electron-optical system; a mini-environment chamberfor supplying a clean gas to the object to prevent dust from contacting to the object; a working chamberfor accommodating the stage device, the working chamber being controllable so as to have a vacuum atmosphere; at least two loading chambersdisposed between the mini-environment chamber and the working chamber, adapted to be independently controllable so as to have a vacuum atmosphere; and a loaderfor transferring the object to the stage system through the loading chambers.

A system for further enhancing speed, i.e. improving throughput in a SEM-type inspection apparatus is provided. An inspection apparatus for inspecting a surface of a substrate produces a crossover from electrons emitted from an electron beam source, then forms an image under a desired magnification in the direction of a sample W to produce a crossover. When the crossover is passed, electrons as noises are removed from the crossover with an aperture, an adjustment is made so that the crossover becomes a parallel electron beam to irradiate the substrate in a desired sectional form. The electron beam is produced such that the unevenness of illuminance is 10% or less. Electrons emitted from the sample W are detected by a detector

The present invention provides a surface inspection method and apparatus for inspecting a surface of a sample, in which a resistive film is coated on the surface, and a beam is irradiated to the surface having the resistive film coated thereon, to thereby conduct inspection of the surface of the sample. In the surface inspection method of the present invention, a resistive film having an arbitrarily determined thickness tis first coated on a surface of a sample. Thereafter, a part of the resistive film having the arbitrarily determined thickness tis dissolved in a solvent, to thereby reduce the thickness of the resistive film to a desired level. This enables precise control of a value of resistance of the resistive film and suppresses distortion of an image to be detected.

Sample surface inspection apparatus and method

An electron beam apparatus, in which an electron beam emitted from an electron gun having a cathode and an anode is focused and irradiated onto a sample, and secondary electrons emanated from the sample are directed into a detector, the apparatus further comprising means for optimizing irradiation of the electron beam emitted from the electron gun onto the sample, the optimizing means may be two-stage deflectors disposed in proximity to the electron gun which deflects and directs the electron beam emitted in a specific direction so as to be in alignment with the optical axis direction of the electron beam apparatus, the electron beam emitted in the specific direction being at a certain angle with respect to the optical axis due to the fact that, among the crystal orientations of said cathode, a specific crystal orientation allowing a higher level of electron beam emission out of alignment with the optical axis direction.

Electron beam apparatus and a device manufacturing method by using said electron beam apparatus

[Object] In the control of electron beam focusing of a pierce-type electron gun, any influences from the space charge effect and space charge neutralizing action within the electron gun are eliminated to attain complete control of an electron beam. [Solving Means] Feedback control of the pressure within the electron gun is performed by directly measuring temperature at an internal of the pierce-type electron gun. It is desirable that locations where the direct measurement of the temperature at the internal of the electron gun is performed are an anode () and a flow register (). Further, the direct measurement can be performed at any one of a ring, an aperture and an exhaust pipe provided at an outlet or an inlet of any one of a cathode chamber (), an intermediate chamber, and a scanning chamber (). Accordingly, all of stabilization of beam producing area (optimized design of electron gun itself), stabilization of beam transporting portion and stabilization of beam using portion have become appropriate.

Method of controlling electron beam focusing of pierce-type electron gun and control apparatus therefor

An apparatus capable of detecting defects of a pattern on a sample with high accuracy and reliability and at a high throughput, and a semiconductor manufacturing method using the same are provided. The electron beam apparatus is a mapping-projection-type electron beam apparatus for observing or evaluating a surface of the sample by irradiating the sample with a primary electron beam and forming on a detector an image of reflected electrons emitted from the sample. An electron impact-type detector such as an electron impact-type CCD or an electron impact-type TDI is used as the detector for detecting the reflected electrons. The reflected electrons are selectively detected from an energy difference between the reflected electrons and secondary electrons emitted from the sample. To eliminate charge-up caused on the sample surface by irradiation with the primary electron beam, the surface of the sample is covered with a cover placed above the sample and a gas is supplied to the space above the sample covered with the cover. The gas is brought into contact with the sample surface to reduce charge-up on the sample surface.

Mapping-projection-type electron beam apparatus for inspecting sample by using electrons emitted from the sample

An electron beam emitted from an electron gun (G) forms a reduced image on a sample (S) through a non-dispersion Wien-filter (-), an electromagnetic deflector (-), a beam separator (-), and a tablet lens (-) as an objective lens. The beam separator (-) is configured such that a distance by which a secondary electron beam passes through the beam separator is approximately three times longer than a distance by which a primary electron beam passes through the beam separator. Therefore, even if a magnetic field in the beam separator is set to deflect the primary electron beam by a small angle equal to or less than approximately 10 degrees, the secondary electron beam can be deflected by approximately 30 degrees, so that the primary and secondary electron beams are sufficiently separated. Also, since the primary electron beam is deflected by a small angle, less aberration occurs in the primary electron beam. Accordingly, since a light path length of a primary electro-optical system, it is possible to reduce the influence of space charge and the occurrence of deflection aberration.

Electron beam apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Tohru Satake