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:
Aug. 19, 2003
Filed:
Oct. 29, 1998
Bo Su, San Jose, CA (US);
Mircea Dusa, Campbell, CA (US);
Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
In a process for measuring the CD of a mask pattern transferred to a semiconductor wafer, in which a series of dies are sequentially inspected by first locating a target area on the die and then vectoring to a CD measurement area, a technique is used whereby the stored image of an alignment target is used for pattern recognition in the process of acquiring each subsequent die's target. The stored image is updated with each new die inspected, using an image of the most recently acquired target area. In this manner, the stored target image always closely approximates the next target to be acquired. Thus, according to the invention, difficulties in recognizing and centering on the target are minimized, and CD measurements of much higher reliability can be effected.