公开(公告)号：US20220254000A1

公开(公告)日：2022-08-11

申请号：US17730117

申请日：2022-04-26

Applicant: Applied Materials Israel Ltd.

Inventor： Ariel SHKALIM ,  Vladimir OVECHKIN ,  Evgeny BAL ,  Ronen MADMON ,  Ori PETEL ,  Alexander CHERESHNYA ,  Oren Shmuel COHEN ,  Boaz COHEN

IPC: G06T7/00 ,  G06T1/00 ,  G03F7/20

Abstract: There is provided a mask inspection system and a method of mask inspection. The method comprises: detecting, by the inspection tool, a runtime defect at a defect location on a mask of a semiconductor specimen during runtime scan of the mask, and acquiring, by the inspection tool after runtime and based on the defect location, a plurality sets of aerial images of the runtime defect corresponding to a plurality of focus states throughout a focus process window, each set of aerial images acquired at a respective focus state. The method further comprises for each set of aerial images, calculating a statistic-based EPD value of the runtime defect, thereby giving rise to a plurality of statistic-based EPD values each corresponding to a respective focus state, and determining whether the runtime defect is a true defect based on the plurality of statistic-based EPD values.

公开(公告)号：US20210073963A1

公开(公告)日：2021-03-11

申请号：US16833380

申请日：2020-03-27

Applicant: Applied Materials Israel Ltd.

Inventor： Ariel SHKALIM ,  Vladimir OVECHKIN ,  Evgeny BAL ,  Ronen MADMON ,  Ori PETEL ,  Alexander CHERESHNYA ,  Oren Shmuel COHEN ,  Boaz COHEN

IPC: G06T7/00 ,  G06T1/00

Abstract: There is provided a mask inspection system and a method of mask inspection. The method comprises: during a runtime scan of a mask of a semiconductor specimen, processing a plurality of aerial images of the mask acquired by the mask inspection system to calculate a statistic-based Edge Positioning Displacement (EPD) of a potential defect, wherein the statistic-based EPD is calculated using a Print Threshold (PT) characterizing the mask and is applied to each of the one or more acquired aerial images to calculate respective EPD of the potential defect therein; and filtering the potential defect as a “runtime true” defect when the calculated statistic-based EPD exceeds a predefined EPD threshold, and filtering out the potential defect as a “false” defect when the calculated statistic-based EPD is lower than the predefined EPD threshold. The method can further comprise after-runtime EPD-based filtering of the plurality of “runtime true” defects.