The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 29, 2020
Filed:
Dec. 16, 2019
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Hsinchu, TW;
Shang-Wei Fang, Hsinchu County, TW;
Jing-Sen Wang, Hsinchu, TW;
Yuan-Yao Chang, Kaohsiung, TW;
Wei-Ray Lin, Hsinchu, TW;
Ting-Hua Hsieh, Hsinchu, TW;
Pei-Hsuan Lee, Taipei, TW;
Yu-Hsuan Huang, Taichung, TW;
TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING CO., LTD, Hsinchu, TW;
Abstract
A method for inline inspection during semiconductor wafer fabrication is provided. The method includes forming a plurality of test structures on a semiconductor wafer along two opposite directions. An offset distance between a sample feature and a target feature of each of the test structures increases gradually along the two opposite directions. The method further includes producing an image of the test structures. The method also includes performing image analysis of the image to recognize a position with an extreme of a gray level. In addition, the method includes calculating an overlay error according to the recognized position.