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:
Feb. 16, 1988
Filed:
Apr. 11, 1986
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A method of auto-focusing suitable for fine patterns of LSIs and an apparatus therefor, particularly applied for checking the geometry of a circuit pattern of a semiconductor device formed on an LSI wafer. A stripe pattern is projected on a specified location on an object to be checked and contrast of an image of the stripe pattern is used for focusing. The specified location is imaged by an optical system and detected simultaneously by two detectors. A position at which contrast of an output signal of one detector coincides with that of the other detector is determined to be an in-focus position. Am image of a multi-layer pattern representative of the circuit pattern is focused on another detector disposed at the in-focus position and detected for checking. The output signal of the detector is divided by mean brightness of the stripe pattern image so as to be normalized. Since the two detectors produce their output signals simultaneously, the difference between the output signals is normalized to improve accuracies of computation.