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.

Date of Patent:
Nov. 30, 1993

Filed:

May. 20, 1992
Applicant:
Inventors:

Yuri S Uritsky, Foster City, CA (US);

Harry Q Lee, Mountain View, CA (US);

Patrick D Kinney, Coon Rapids, MN (US);

Kang-Ho Ahn, Seoul, KR;

Assignee:

Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);

Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G01B / ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
356375 ; 356 72 ; 356237 ;
Abstract

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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