Applied Materials, Inc.

Yuri S Uritsky

Patrick D Kinney

Harry Q Lee

Chikuang Charles Wang

Yan Ye

Thai Cheng Chua

Anand Gupta

Biao Liu

Johanes F Swenberg

Shreyas Kher

Man-Ping Cai

Kang-Ho Ahn

Giuseppina Conti

Shankar Muthukrisnan

Nagaraja Rao

Ajay Singhal

A method of operation of a measurement system includes: providing a specimen having a film; controlling a beam generator to direct a charged particle beam into the specimen; detecting a reference signal emitted from the specimen; normalizing the reference signal to create a film L-ratio; and determining a thickness of the film by correlating the film L-ratio to a calibration curve.

Measurement system with thickness calculation and method of operation thereof

A method, a system and a computer readable medium for dynamic mode AFM amplitude versus distance curve acquisition. In an embodiment, a constant force feedback mechanism is enabled prior to the first time an AFM probe tip contacts a sample. The feedback mechanism setpoint is iteratively reduced while at least phase and amplitude of the probe tip are recorded as a function of the relative z-height of a cantilever coupled to the probe tip. The feedback mechanism setpoint may be repeatedly swept between upper and lower bounds to average out drift between the cantilever and sample. Upon detecting a threshold, an absolute tip-to-sample distance is determined and correlated to the relative z-heights. The amplitude and phase data recorded prior to tip-sample contact is then determined as a function of absolute tip-to-sample distance.

Non-destructive ambient dynamic mode AFM amplitude versus distance curve acquisition

Methods for forming a integrated gate dielectric layer on a substrate are provided. In one embodiment, the method includes forming a silicon oxide layer on a substrate, plasma treating the silicon oxide layer, depositing a silicon nitride layer on the silicon oxide layer by an ALD process, and thermal annealing the substrate. In another embodiment, the method includes precleaning a substrate, forming a silicon oxide layer on the substrate, plasma treating the silicon oxide layer, depositing a silicon nitride layer on the silicon oxide layer by an ALD process, and thermal annealing the substrate, wherein the formed silicon oxide layer and the silicon nitride layer has a total thickness less than 30 &#x212b; utilized as a gate dielectric layer in a gate structure.

Method for fabricating an integrated gate dielectric layer for field effect transistors

Methods and apparatus for automatically determining a feedback setpoint for use in operating an atomic force microscope (AFM) are provided. The setpoint may be determined by modulating a feedback setpoint while monitoring for a change in a detector signal. In an effort to avoid tip damage and remain in non-contact, attractive mode during use, a setpoint just above a setpoint corresponding to a detected change in a parameter of the detector signal, such as an abrupt change in phase, may be used to operate the AFM.

Atomic force microscope technique for minimal tip damage

A method and apparatus that accurately marks a wafer at selected locations such as a defect location on the surface of a wafer such that a wafer analysis system (e.g., SEM or AFM) may rapidly find the defect. The apparatus contains a wafer platen for retaining a wafer in a substantially horizontal orientation and a marking assembly mounted above the wafer platen. The marking assembly further contains an optical microscope and a marking head. In operation, a user locates a defect using the optical microscope and places a pattern of fiducial marks at a predetermined distance from the defect, e.g., four marks in a diamond pattern circumscribing the defect.

Method and apparatus for selectively marking a semiconductor wafer

A method and apparatus that accurately marks a wafer at selected locations to form a wafer coordinate system. The apparatus contains a wafer platen for retaining a wafer in a substantially horizontal orientation, a wafer orientation detector assembly and a marking assembly mounted above the wafer platen. In operation, the apparatus orients the wafer by identifying an orientation attribute of the wafer, then applies fiducial marks to the wafer. The wafer marking apparatus forms a portion of an integrated analytical tool.

A method and apparatus for accurately transforming coordinates within a first coordinate system (e.g., a two-dimensional coordinate system associated with a substrate (or portion thereof)) into coordinates in a second coordinate system (e.g., a three-dimensional coordinate system of substrate (or portion thereof) tilted within a wafer analysis tool.

Method and apparatus for transforming a substrate coordinate system into

An automated method for aligning wafer surface scan maps and locating defects such as particle contaminant distributions on a wafer surface. More specifically, the invention is an automated method for locating added and removed contaminants and other defects on a semiconductor wafer surface after the wafer has undergone wafer-handling and/or processing. A second data set of a second scan of a wafer surface is misalignment-corrected to a first coordinate system of a first scan of the wafer surface. Thereafter, a final match is made between a first data set of the first scan and the misalignment-corrected data of the second scan. Non-matching locations in the misalignment-corrected data of the second scan represent added defects on the surface of the wafer. Non-matching locations in the base data of the first scan represent removed defects from the surface of the wafer.

Method for aligning semiconductor wafer surface scans and identifying

An apparatus suitable for marking a substrate comprises a holder for holding a substrate and a ground for electrically grounding the substrate. At least one needle electrode has a tip located proximate to the substrate so that there is a gap between the substrate and the tip. A high voltage source provides a current to the electrode tip to ionize the gas in the gap so that the ionized gas can impinge upon and mark the substrate.

Method for marking a substrate using ionized gas

An automated method for establishing a wafer coordinate system for a wafer characterization system. Specifically, under computer control, a high-magnification imaging system images a wafer at a low, initial magnification level. From this imaging process, the method first determines the location of the center of the semiconductor wafer mounted within the imaging system and then determines the wafer orientation therein. The method then repeats the imaging process at increased magnification levels until a desired degree of magnification is used to accurately define the location of the wafer center and the wafer orientation. Together the wafer center and orientation define a wafer coordinate system. This wafer coordinate system is then related to the coordinate system of the imaging system by a coordinate system transformation. As such, once the coordinate systems are related, the imaging system can quickly and accurately determine any point on a wafer. The method uses various wafer edge locations to determine the wafer center location and wafer orientation. These edge locations are determined by either: (1) using a scanning electron microscope in conjunction with an image processing technique, or (2) using an energy dispersive x-ray detector to detect changes in the SiK.sub..alpha. line intensity.

Method for automatically establishing a wafer coordinate system

Apparatus for marking a substrate using ionized gas

A method for reducing targeting errors encountered when trying to locate contaminant particles in a high-magnification imaging device, based on estimates of the particle positions obtained from a scanning device. The method of the invention includes scanning a semiconductor wafer in a scanning device, then preferably moving the wafer to a different orientation, and scanning the wafer again, to obtain at least two sets of particle coordinates that may differ slightly because of uncertainties in the scanning process. The multiple sets of coordinates are averaged to reduce the targeting errors, but only after transforming the coordinates to a common coordinate system. The transformation step includes computing transformation parameters for each possible pair of particles detected in at least two scans, averaging the results, and then transforming all of the particle coordinates to the common coordinate system. Optionally, the method may include discarding any transformation parameters that deviate too far from the average, and then computing the average transformation parameters again.

Multiple-scan method for wafer particle analysis

A method for reducing targeting errors that arise when trying to locate contaminant particles on a notched semiconductor wafer using a high-magnification imaging device, based on estimates of wafer feature positions obtained from a scanning device. The present invention scans a notched semiconductor wafer with a scanning device to obtain scanning device coordinates for the positions of: (i) the wafer center; (ii) the wafer notch; and (iii) contaminant particles on the wafer. Next, the present invention finds the wafer notch and wafer center with an imaging device and obtains their estimated imaging device coordinates. Subsequently, the present invention calculates estimated transformation parameters for a coordinate transformation between the coordinate systems of the scanning device and the imaging device based on the scamping device coordinates and the estimated imaging device coordinates of the wafer notch and the wafer center. Finally, the present invention transforms the scanning device coordinates of the particles on the wafer to estimated imaging device coordinates using the estimated transformation parameters.

Particle analysis of notched wafers

A method for reducing targeting errors encountered when trying to locate contaminant particles in a high-magnification imaging device, based on estimates of the particle positions obtained from a scanning device. The method of the invention uses three techniques separately and in combination. The first technique includes selecting at least three reference particles, to provide multiple unique pairs of reference particles for computation of an averaged set of coordinate transformation parameters, used to transform particle position coordinates from the coordinate system of the scanning device to the coordinate system of the imaging device. The averaged transformation parameters result in much smaller targeting errors between the estimated and actual positions of the particles. The targeting errors are further reduced by the use of multiple scans of the scanning device. In a third technique, accumulated reference particle targeting errors observed in prior processing of other wafers are used to reduce these targeting errors when processing a new wafer.

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Foster City, CA, United States of America

Yuri S Uritsky