Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi-high-technologies Corporation

Other

Hitachi High-tech Corporation

Renesas Electronics Corporation

Sandisk Technologies Inc.

Renesas Technology Corp.

Hitachi Displays, Ltd.

University of Rochester

Yasuhiro Yoshitake

Toshihiko Nakata

Minoru Yoshida

Masahiro Watanabe

Shunichi Matsumoto

Yoshitada Oshida

Masataka Shiba

Shunji Maeda

Yukihiro Shibata

Sachio Uto

Hiroaki Shishido

Hideaki Sasazawa

Taketo Ueno

Toshiharu Miwa

Takeshi Kato

Kenji Watanabe

Mineo Nomoto

Atsushi Shimoda

Shuichi Baba

Naoto Nakashima

Toshifumi Honda

Norio Hasegawa

Yuta Urano

Hiroyuki Nakano

Mari Nozoe

Seiji Ishikawa

Fumio Mizuno

Takenori Hirose

Toshimitsu Hamada

Seiji Isogai

Keiya Saito

Hisafumi Iwata

Ikuo Suzuki

Tetsuya Yamazaki

Isao Miyazaki

Hideki Fukushima

Jun Nakazato

Yuichi Ohyama

Keiko Oka

Yoshiharu Shigyo

Masami Ikota

Makoto Ariga

Tetsuji Yokouchi

Terushige Asakawa

Hidekuni Sugimoto

Minori Noguchi

Hidetoshi Nishiyama

Makoto Ono

Yuji Takagi

Maki Tanaka

Chie Shishido

Hidetoshi Morokuma

Satoshi Shigematsu

Ryoichi Matsuoka

Shigeru Matsuyama

Kenji Oka

Osamu Komuro

Hirokazu Matsumoto

Tetsuya Matsui

Kenji Tamaki

Akiyuki Sugiyama

Koji Suzuki

Takashi Iizumi

Takumichi Sutani

Yoshiyuki Miyamoto

G Michael Morris

Wataru Nagatomo

Yasuhiko Nakayama

Soichi Katagiri

Akio Yazaki

Tatsuo Hariyama

Junko Konishi

Takehiro Tachizaki

Yoshimasa Fukushima

Takeshi Arai

Shuji Sugiyama

Natsuyo Morioka

Kiyoshi Takamasu

Kazunori Nemoto

Yoko Ikeda

Tetsuzo Tanimoto

Yoshimitsu Saze

Taiki Murata

Keiko Yoshimizu

Takeo Ueno

Kana Nemoto

As a technique to improve processing efficiency of defect inspection by quickly adjusting a position of a detection system, provided is a defect inspection apparatus including: a stage that moves with a sample and a pattern substrate placed thereon; an illumination optical system that irradiates an object on the stage from a direction inclined from the normal direction of the pattern substrate; a first detection optical system that detects scattered light in the normal direction; a second detection optical system that detects scattered light in a direction different from the scattered light detected by the first detection optical system; a signal processing unit that processes both scattered light signals; and a control unit. The control unit implements first adjustment processing of adjusting a focal position of the first or the second detection optical system and a three-dimensional position of each detector with respect to an illumination region by using a scattered light signal and second adjustment processing of adjusting a focal point by changing a position in an optical axis direction of a detector of the first or the second detection optical system and a position in a height direction of the stage, and implements the second adjustment processing at a higher frequency than the first adjustment processing.

Defect inspection apparatus and pattern chip

In a defect inspection device that irradiates a surface of a sample or a surface of a pattern chip with an illumination light shaped to extend in a first direction, and detects a scattered light generated from the surface of the sample or the surface of the pattern chip by the illumination light to detect a defect on the surface of the sample, the pattern chip has a dot pattern area in which multiple dots are arrayed in multiple rows and multiple columns, a minimum interval between the dots corresponding to the lines aligned in the first direction among the multiple dots arrayed in the dot pattern area in a second direction orthogonal to the first direction is smaller than a width of the illumination light, and a minimum interval between the multiple dots arrayed in the dot pattern area is larger than a resolution of the detection optical system.

Defect inspection device, pattern chip, and defect inspection method

A method of inspecting a device under test for defects includes detecting intensity and directional information of radiation rays emanating from a device under test by a light field camera, generating synthesized images of the device under test detected by the light field camera, and determining a depth of a defect in the device under test from the synthesized images.

Optical inspection tool and method

Disclosed is a distance measuring device using an optical comb. In order for the absolute distance to an object to be measured which has a surface with low reflection ratio or a scattering surface and is approximately 10 m apart, to be easily measured with accuracy of 0.1 mm or more using an optical and contactless method, the distance measuring device which measures the distance to the object to be measured is configured such that the distance to the object to be measured is measured by comparing the phase of the beat signal between a light source and a plurality of CW lasers which are reflected or scattered by the object with the phase of the beat signal between the light source and a plurality of CW lasers prior to being irradiated onto the object.

Distance measuring device and distance measuring method

There is provided a pattern inspection device for a substrate surface which can inspect a substrate including a pattern whose size is equal to or smaller than light resolution limit at high speed. The pattern inspection device for the substrate surface includes: a near-field optical headhaving a fine repetitive pattern; a &#x3b8; driving unitof scanning an inspected substraterelatively to the near-field optical head; a space holding mechanism of holding a space between the near-field optical headand the inspected substrateconstant; alight sourceof irradiating light to the near-field optical head; a detection systemof detecting an intensity of scattered light generated by interaction between the fine repetitive pattern on the near-field optical headand a fine pattern on a surface of the inspected substrate; and a signal processing unitof inspecting the fine pattern on the inspected substratebased on an output of the detection system

Pattern inspection device of substrate surface and pattern inspection method of the same

Disclosed are a spectroscopic optical system and a spectrometer both enabling vertical illumination by means of an optical system using only refractive lenses and enabling wide-band color correction in the DUV-UV (190 to 400 nm) range. The spectroscopic optical system and spectrometer each comprise a light source (), a folding mirror (), a field stop (), an object-side focusing lens system () for focusing light onto a sample, an image-side focusing lens () disposed on the image forming plane of the object-side focusing lens system, and a spectroscope () for dispersing regularly reflected light from the sample. The object-side focusing lens system () and the image-side focusing lens system () are each a spectroscopic optical system corrected with respect to color in a broad band of wavelength from 190 to 400 nm and configured from only refractive lenses enabling vertical illumination. The working distance (WD) of each lens is set shorter than a predetermined distance, and the doublet interval (D) is set longer than a predetermined distance.

DUV-UV band spectroscopic optical system and spectrometer using same

Measurement cannot be made when trying to measure a wavefront aberration of a wide-angle lens, being wide in a field of view, comparing to a focus distance, by a Shack-Hartmann sensor, since an inclination of the wavefront exceeds an allowable value of inclination of the Shack-Hartmann sensor. The Shack-Hartmann sensor is inclined at a position of a pupil of a lens, and is controlled so that it lies within the allowable value mentioned above. Photographing is made through step & repeat while overlapping at the same position, to compose in such a manner that overlapping spots are piled up, and thereby measuring the wavefront aberration of the lens having a large pupil diameter.

Wavefront aberration measuring method and device therefor

A defect inspection system is disclosed for easily setting inspection conditions and providing an inspection condition and a defect signal intensity to an operator. The defect inspection system digitizes a defective image, and a reference image corresponding thereto and a mismatched portion of the defective image and the reference image as a defect signal intensity and accumulates them in association with the inspection condition. The inspection conditions are changed to repeat evaluations while repeating accumulating works until the evaluation of all the inspection conditions in a set range is completed. A recipe file including the accumulated conditions having the high defect signal intensity and an inspection condition item distribution as a inspection condition recipe is automatically outputted and provided to the operator.

Defect inspection system

In a displacement measurement apparatus using light interference, a probe light path is spatially separated from a reference light path. Therefore, when a temperature or refractive index distribution by a fluctuation of air or the like, or a mechanical vibration is generated, an optical path difference fluctuates between both of the optical paths, and a measurement error is generated. In the solution, an optical axis of probe light is brought close to that of reference light by a distance which is not influenced by any disturbance, a sample is irradiated with the probe light, a reference surface is irradiated with the reference light, reflected light beams are allowed to interfere with each other, and a displacement of the sample is obtained from the resultant interference light to thereby prevent the measurement error from being generated by the fluctuation of the optical path difference.

Method and apparatus for measuring displacement of a sample using a wire grid polarizer to generate interference light

A defect inspection device comprises an inspection optical system including a light source, a half mirror for reflecting illumination light emitted from the light source, a catadioptric objective lens for collecting reflected light from the sample by illumination light reflected by the half mirror, an imaging lens for focusing the reflected light transmitted through the catadioptric objective lens, a relay lens having a blocking member provided at a position at which specularly reflected light from the sample is focused by the imaging lens, and a detector for detecting specularly reflected light not blocked by the blocking member; and a computation processing unit for detecting defects of the sample on the basis of the signals detected by the detector.

Defect inspection device using catadioptric objective lens

An inspection apparatus and method includes a light source, an illuminating unit having a polarization controller and an object lens for illuminating a specimen with light emitted from the light source and passed through the polarization controller and the object lens, a detection unit having a sensor for detecting light from the specimen illuminated by the illuminating unit, a processor which processes a signal output from the sensor so as to detect a defect on the specimen, and a display which displays information output from the processor. The processor processes an image formed from the signal output from the sensor in which the image is reduced in speckle pattern.

Method and equipment for detecting pattern defect

In a defect inspection apparatus for inspecting a wafer provided with a circuit pattern for defects, the illuminating direction of illuminating light rays is selectively determined such that an area containing a defect that scatters light of high intensity coincides with the aperture of a dark-field detecting system, and such that regularly reflected light regularly reflected by a pattern, which is noise to defect detection, does not coincide with the aperture of the dark field detecting system.

Defect inspection apparatus and method

To provide a defect inspection apparatus for inspecting defects of a specimen without lowering resolution of a lens, without depending on a polarization characteristic of a defect scattered light, and with high detection sensitivity that is realized by the following. A detection optical path is branched by at least one of spectral splitting and polarization splitting, a spatial filter in the form of a two-dimensional array is disposed after the branch, and only diffracted light is shielded by the spatial filter in the form of a two-dimensional array.

Method and apparatus for inspecting defects

An apparatus for inspecting a substrate surface is provided, which includes illumination optics for irradiating the substrate surface linearly with rectilinearly polarized light from an oblique direction, detection optics for acquiring images of the substrate surface, each of the images being formed by the light scattered from the light-irradiated substrate surface, and means for comparing an image selected as an inspection image from the plurality of substrate surface images that the detection optics has acquired to detect defects, and another image selected from the plural images of the substrate surface as a reference image different from the inspection image; the illumination optics being formed with polarization control means for controlling a polarizing direction of the light according to a particular scanning direction of the substrate or a direction orthogonal to the scanning direction.

In spectral detection for detecting the shape of repeating pattern structures uniformly formed on a surface of a test object, it is advantageous to use light having a wide wavelength range in a short wavelength region. However, it is not easy to realize a relatively simple optical system capable of spectral detection of light having a wide wavelength range in a short wavelength region, namely in ultraviolet region. The present invention provides an inspection apparatus for detecting pattern defects. The inspection apparatus includes a spectral detection optical system capable of spectral detection of light in a wavelength range from deep ultraviolet to near infrared. The spectral detection optical system includes a spatially partial mirror serving as a half mirror and a reflecting objective provided with an aperture stop for limiting the angle and direction of light to be applied to and reflected by a test object.

Spectral detection method and device, and defect inspection method and apparatus using the same

Growing community of inventors

Yokohama, Japan

Yasuhiro Yoshitake