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. 09, 1997
Filed:
Feb. 16, 1996
A Kathleen Hennessey, Lubbock, TX (US);
YouLing Lin, Lubbock, TX (US);
Wan Sang Wong, Lubbock, TX (US);
C Rinn Cleavelin, Lubbock, TX (US);
Stephen J Demoor, Sugarland, TX (US);
Kwang-Soo Hahn, Seoul, KR;
Texas Instruments Incorporated, Dallas, TX (US);
Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX (US);
Abstract
A method is provided for aligning a silicon wafer (20) in a fabrication tool (37) having a stage (22) involving the steps of producing a digital image of a portion of wafer (20) in a scope-of-view window (48), converting the digital image to image primitives, comparing the image primitives to grammar template primitives to locate a known intersection on wafer (20); and moving the stage (22) to align wafer (20). A method and apparatus are disclosed for determining the misregistration of two layers of a wafer (20) by converting targets (158, 160) to primitives and determining the relative displacement in symbolic space. The misregistration apparatus involves a camera (34), a video-to-digital converter (32), a computer (28), and a stage adjuster (24).