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. 27, 2016
Filed:
May. 16, 2012
Yury Nikolenko, San Jose, CA (US);
Matthew Fauss, Boulder Creek, CA (US);
Yury Nikolenko, San Jose, CA (US);
Matthew Fauss, Boulder Creek, CA (US);
NeoVision, LLC, Albany, CA (US);
Abstract
An apparatus for, and methods of use for, measuring film thickness on an underlying body are provided. The apparatus may include at least one Impedance Resonance (IR) sensor, which may include at least one sensing head. The at least one sensing head may include an inductor having at least one excitation coil and at least one sensing coil. The excitation coil may propagate energy to the sensing coil so that the sensing coil may generate a probing electromagnetic field. The apparatus may also include at least one power supply, at least one RF sweep generator electrically connected to the excitation coil; at least one data acquisition block electrically connected to the sensing coil; at least one calculation block; and at least one communication block. Methods of monitoring conductive, semiconductive or non-conductive film thickness, and various tools for Chemical Mechanical Polishing/Planarization (CMP), etching, deposition and stand-alone metrology are also provided.