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:
Jul. 27, 2021
Filed:
May. 09, 2018
Kla-tencor Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Alexander Bykanov, Escondido, CA (US);
Nikolay Artemiev, Berkeley, CA (US);
Joseph A. Di Regolo, Livermore, CA (US);
Antonio Gellineau, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Alexander Kuznetsov, Austin, TX (US);
Andrei Veldman, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
John Hench, Los Gatos, CA (US);
KLA-Tencor Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
Methods and systems for positioning a specimen and characterizing an x-ray beam incident onto the specimen in a Transmission, Small-Angle X-ray Scatterometry (T-SAXS) metrology system are described herein. A specimen positioning system locates a wafer vertically and actively positions the wafer in six degrees of freedom with respect to the x-ray illumination beam without attenuating the transmitted radiation. In some embodiments, a cylindrically shaped occlusion element is scanned across the illumination beam while the detected intensity of the transmitted flux is measured to precisely locate the beam center. In some other embodiments, a periodic calibration target is employed to precisely locate the beam center. The periodic calibration target includes one or more spatially defined zones having different periodic structures that diffract X-ray illumination light into distinct, measurable diffraction patterns.