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:
Jan. 29, 2002
Filed:
Mar. 13, 2000
William Hsioh-Lien Ma, Fishkill, NY (US);
David Vaclay Horak, Essex Junction, VT (US);
Toshiharu Furukawa, Essex Junction, VT (US);
Steven J. Holmes, Milton, VT (US);
Mark Charles Hakey, Milton, VT (US);
International Business Machines Corp., Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
An improved alignment methodology for lithography. In the method, a third level is aligned to two previous levels, where the alignment mark location for the third level is calculated based upon the two previous levels in both the x- and y-directions. A preferred embodiment of the invention relates to a lithography alignment method for aligning a third level of a semiconductor device relative to first and second previous levels of the device. The method comprises the steps of forming first and second patterns at the first and second levels respectively, and determining offsets of the first and second patterns in two orthoginal directions. An optimum location for a third pattern in the third level is then determined based on an average of the offsets of the first and second patterns.