IP Library Granted Patent US 8,189,205
Granted Patent B2
US 8,189,205 · App. 12/979,885 · Granted May 29, 2012

Surface inspection tool and surface inspection method

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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 8,189,205
App. No.
12/979,885
Granted
May 29, 2012
Kind
B2
Abstract

An object of the present invention is to provide a surface inspection tool in which a flat inspection range capable of measuring surface roughness of a wafer with patterns with high accuracy and in a nondestructive manner can be searched without visual search. In order to solve the object, in a surface inspection tool 110 which measures scattering light intensity of scattering light generated by irradiated irradiation light in association with a measurement coordinate on a wafer 200 with patterns and inspects the surface roughness of the wafer 200 , the surface inspection tool includes a controller 250 which extracts measurement coordinate of the measured scattering light intensity that is equal to or more than a lower limit threshold L, sets an inspection range 406 of the surface roughness inspection in a partial layout 405 a of a part of the whole layout 401 of the pattern corresponding to the periphery of the extracted measurement coordinate, and obtains the surface roughness in the inspection range 406.

Claims (26)

1. A system for acquiring a surface condition of a substrate, the system comprising:

a processing unit configured to:

relate circuit-pattern-data of the substrate to distribution of an optical property of the substrate, and

acquire a surface roughness of the substrate by the relation of the circuit pattern-data to the distribution of the optical property; and

a display unit which displays the distribution of the optical property.

2. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the distribution of the optical property is an intensity-distribution of a light from the substrate.

3. The system according to claim 1 ,

wherein the display unit displays the distribution of the optical property by a contour map.

4. A system according to claim 1 , wherein the display unit displays a chip-layout on the substrate, so that a chip to be detected in the distribution of the optical property and a chip to be detected in the chip-layout are displayed in the same size, respectively.

5. A system according to claim 1 , wherein the processing unit acquires detection-frequency of the distribution of the optical property.

6. A system according to claim 5 , wherein the processing unit is further configured to:

execute threshold-processing against the distribution of the optical property by using at least one of first and second threshold values, wherein:

the first threshold value is larger than a signal from a memory area of the chip and smaller than a signal from a logic area of the chip, and

the second threshold value is larger than the signal from the logic area of the chip.

7. A method for acquiring a surface condition of a substrate, the method comprising steps of:

by way of processing unit:

relating a circuit-pattern-data of the substrate to distribution of an optical property of the substrate; and

acquiring a surface roughness of the substrate by using the relation of the circuit pattern-data to the distribution of the optical property; and displaying the distribution of the optical property on a display unit.

8. The method according to claim 7 , wherein the distribution of the optical property is an intensity-distribution of a light from the substrate.

9. The system according to claim 7 , wherein the displaying step includes displaying the distribution of the optical property by a contour map.

10. The method according to claim 7 , wherein the displaying step includes displaying a chip-layout on the substrate, so that a chip to be detected in the distribution of the optical property and a chip to be detected in the chip-layout are displayed in the same size, respectively.

11. The method according to claim 7 , further comprising the step of acquiring a detection-frequency of the distribution of the optical property.

12. The method according to claim 11 , further comprising the steps of:

executing threshold-processing against the distribution of the optical property by using at least one of first and second threshold values, wherein:

the first threshold value is larger than a signal from a memory area of the chip and smaller than signal from a logic area of the chip, and

the second threshold value is larger than the signal from the logic area of the chip.

Assignments (1)
CHANGE OF NAME AND ADDRESS Recorded Mar 30, 2020
From: HITACHI HIGH-TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION
To: HITACHI HIGH-TECH CORPORATION
Reel/Frame 052259/0227 →