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. 13, 2016
Filed:
Oct. 10, 2014
Kla-tencor Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Stilian Ivanov Pandev, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Alexander Kuznetsov, Mountain View, CA (US);
Gregory R. Brady, Campbell, CA (US);
Andrei V. Shchegrov, Campbell, CA (US);
Noam Sapiens, Cupertino, CA (US);
John J. Hench, Los Gatos, CA (US);
KLA-Tencor Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
Disclosed are apparatus and methods for determining a structure or process parameter value of a target of interest on a semiconductor wafer. A plurality of collection patterns are defined for a spatial light beam controller positioned at a pupil image plane of a metrology tool. For each collection pattern, a signal is collected from a sensor of the metrology tool, and each collected signal represents a combination of a plurality of signals that the spatial light beam controller samples, using each collection pattern, from a pupil image of the target of interest. The collection patterns are selected so that the pupil image is reconstructable based on the collection patterns and their corresponding collection signals. The collected signal for each of the collection patterns is analyzed to determine a structure or process parameter value for the target of interest.