Method of determining control parameters of a device manufacturing process

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11513442-B2
Application number	US-201816644206-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 22, 2018
Priority date	Sep 27, 2017
Publication date	Nov 29, 2022
Grant date	Nov 29, 2022

Abstract

A method for determining a metric of a feature on a substrate obtained by a semiconductor manufacturing process involving a lithographic process, the method including: obtaining an image of at least part of the substrate, wherein the image includes at least the feature; determining a contour of the feature from the image; determining a plurality of segments of the contour; determining respective weights for each of the plurality of segments; determining, for each of the segments, an image-related metric; and determining the metric of the feature in dependence on the weights and the calculated image-related metric of each of the segments.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for determining a feature metric of a feature on a substrate obtained by a semiconductor manufacturing process comprising a lithographic process, the method comprising:
obtaining a contour of the feature from an image of at least part of the substrate, wherein the image comprises at least the feature;
determining a plurality of segments of the contour;
determining respective weights for each of the plurality of segments;
determining, for each of the segments, an image-related metric; and
determining, by a hardware computer system, the feature metric of the feature in dependence on the weights and the determined image-related metric of each of the segments.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the feature metric and/or image-related metric comprise an edge placement error (EPE).

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising determining one or more control parameters of the lithographic process and/or one or more further processes, in dependence on the edge placement error.

4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising configuring a lithographic apparatus used in the lithographic process in dependence on the determined one or more control parameters.

5. The method of claim 3 , further comprising controlling an etching apparatus used in the one or more further processes in dependence on the determined one or more control parameters.

6. The method of claim 3 , wherein the one or more control parameters are determined in dependence on the sensitivity of each of the segments.

7. The method of claim 3 , wherein a plurality of control parameters is determined and at least two of the control parameters are co-determined.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the co-determination of at least two of the control parameters is dependent on:
the combined effect of the at least two control parameters; and/or
the interdependence of the at the least two control parameters.

9. The method of claim 7 , wherein the co-determined control parameters are determined in dependence on CD variation on a small spatial scale or both CD variation on a small spatial scale and CD variation on a large spatial scale.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the image-related metric is determined in dependence on a comparison of the segment of the contour and a target contour.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the weight of each segment is dependent on a tolerance value of the image-related metric of the segment.

12. A method comprising:
obtaining a plurality of images of the substrate; and
determining a metric of one or more features in each image in accordance with the method of claim 1 .

13. The method according to claim 12 , wherein the image-related metric includes one or more selected from: a size of block patterns in the images, a difference in sizes of block patterns in the images, a difference in pitches in gratings in the images, an overall shift of a block layer with respect to a grating layer, and/or a shift between two Litho-Etch-Litho-Etch (LELE) layers.

14. The method according to claim 12 , wherein the image-related metric is determined by mapping each image out of the plurality of images to a corresponding reference image.

15. The method according to claim 12 , wherein determining the image-related metric comprises:
determining a contour shape of a structure comprised by a feature within an image out of the plurality of images; and
comparing the determined contour shape with one or more reference contour shapes; and
generating a model of the comparison result.

16. The method according to claim 15 , wherein the reference contour shape is an intended contour shape or an actual contour shape.

17. The method according to claim 15 , wherein the reference contour shape is an actual contour shape of the same structure in another image out of the plurality of images.

18. The method according to claim 15 , wherein the model comprises one or more parameters that represent one or more selected from a translation, magnification and/or rotation difference between the determined contour shape and the one or more reference contour shapes.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions therein, the instructions, when executed by a computer system, configured to cause the computer system to at least:
obtain a contour of a feature on a substrate obtained by a semiconductor manufacturing process comprising a lithographic process, from an image of at least part of the substrate, wherein the image comprises at least the feature;
determine a plurality of segments of the contour;
determine respective weights for each of the plurality of segments;
determine, for each of the segments, an image-related metric; and
determine a feature metric of the feature in dependence on the weights and the determined image-related metric of each of the segments.

20. A system for manufacturing devices on a substrate, wherein the system is configured to perform the method of claim 1 .

Assignees

• Asml Netherlands Bv

Inventors

• Tel Wim Tjibbo
• Maslow Mark John
• Van Ingen Schenau Koenraad
• Warnaar Patrick
• Slachter Abraham
• Anunciado Roy
• Van Gorp Simon Hendrik Celine
• Staals Frank
• Jochemsen Marinus

Classifications

• H10P95/00

  Generic processes or apparatus for manufacture or treatments not covered by the other groups of this subclass · CPC title

• H10P74/23

  characterised by multiple measurements, corrections, marking or sorting processes · CPC title

• G03F7/70633

  Overlay, i.e. relative alignment between patterns printed by separate exposures in different layers, or in the same layer in multiple exposures or stitching · CPC title

• G06F30/20

  Design optimisation, verification or simulation (optimisation, verification or simulation of circuit designs G06F30/30) · CPC title

• G06T7/0004

  Industrial image inspection · CPC title