IP Library › Granted Patent US 11,682,114
Granted Patent B2
US 11,682,114 · App. 17/242,158 · Granted Jun 20, 2023

Thickness measurement of substrate using color metrology

Inventor: Dominic J. Benvegnu (La Honda, CA)
Assignee: Applied Materials, Inc.
G06T7/001B24B37/013G06T7/0006G06T7/90H01L21/67253G06T2207/10024G06T2207/30148H01L21/67742H04N23/12H04N23/56
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 11,682,114
App. No.
17/242,158
Granted
Jun 20, 2023
Kind
B2
Abstract

A metrology system for obtaining a measurement representative of a thickness of a layer on a substrate includes a camera positioned to capture a color image of at least a portion of the substrate. A controller is configured to receive the color image from the camera, store a predetermined path in a coordinate space of at least two dimension including a first color channel and a second color channel, store a function that provides a value representative of a thickness as a function of a position on the predetermined path, determine a coordinate of a pixel in the coordinate space from color data in the color image for the pixel, determine a position of a point on the predetermined path that is closest to the coordinate of the pixel, and calculate a value representative of a thickness from the function and the position of the point on the predetermined path.

Claims (22)

1. A computer program product for obtaining values representative of a plurality of thicknesses of a plurality of locations on a substrate, the computer program product tangibly embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium, comprising instructions for causing a processor to:

store an image mask representing image data that will not be processed;

receive a color image of the substrate from a color camera;

transform the color image to a standard coordinate frame;

apply the image mask to the color image in the standard coordinate frame to generate a masked color image;

for each unmasked pixel in the masked color image,

determine a coordinate of the pixel in a coordinate space of at least two dimensions including a first color channel and a second color channel from color data in the color image for the pixel, and

determine a value representative of a thickness of a layer on the substrate based on the coordinate of the pixel in the coordinate space.

2. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the image mask comprises a plurality of rectangular unmasked regions separated by gaps that provide portions of the image to screen out.

3. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein portions of the image to mask out represent scribe lines on a substrate.

4. The computer program product of claim 1 , comprising instructions to locate a wafer orientation feature and a wafer center.

5. The computer program product of claim 4 , comprising instructions to rotate the color image such that that there is a Wangle between the x-axis of the image and a radial segment connecting the wafer center and the wafer orientation feature.

6. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the first color channel and the second color channel are selected from a group of color channels comprising hue, saturation, luminosity, X, Y, Z, red chromaticity, green chromaticity, and blue chromaticity.

7. The computer program product of claim 6 , wherein the first color channel is a red chromaticity and the second color channel is a green chromaticity.

8. The computer program product of claim 1 , comprising instructions to

store a function that provides a value representative of a thickness as a function of a position on a predetermined path in the coordinate space;

for each pixel of a plurality of pixels at different locations in the color image,

determine a position of a point on the predetermined path that is closest to the coordinate of the pixel; and

calculate the value representative of a thickness of a layer on the substrate from the function and the position of the point on the predetermined path.

9. The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein the coordinate space is two-dimensional.

10. The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein the coordinate space is three-dimensional.

11. The computer program product of claim 1 , comprising instructions to receive a sequence of color images with each image capturing less than all of the substrate and to generate a 2-dimensional color image of all of the substrate from the sequence of color images.

Assignments (1)
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Aug 20, 2021
From: BENVEGNU, DOMINIC J.
To: APPLIED MATERIALS, INC.
Reel/Frame 057242/0347 →
Continuity (4)
Division 16435291 · Jun 7, 2019
Continuation 15686785 · Aug 25, 2017
Provisional Application 62379920 · Aug 26, 2016
Related Publication 20210248730A1 · Aug 12, 2021