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. 18, 2015
Filed:
Jul. 21, 2014
Kla-tencor Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Michael J. Wright, San Carlos, CA (US);
Zhengcheng Lin, San Jose, CA (US);
Wilfred L. Ghonsalves, San Jose, CA (US);
Daniel L. Belin, San Jose, CA (US);
Weston L. Sousa, San Jose, CA (US);
KLA-Tencor Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
Disclosed are methods and apparatus for detecting defects in a semiconductor sample having a plurality of identically designed areas. An inspection tool is used to construct an initial focus trajectory for a first swath of the sample. The inspection tool is then used to scan the first swath by following the initial focus trajectory for the first swath while collecting autofocus data. A z offset measurement vector for each identically designed area in the first swath is generated based on the autofocus data. A corrected z offset vector is constructed for inspection of the first swath with the inspection tool. Constructing the corrected z offset vector is based on combining the z offset measurement vectors for two or more of the identically designed areas in the first swath so that the corrected z offset vector specifies a same z offset for each set of same positions in the two or more identically designed areas.