Inspection apparatus, control method, and storage medium

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11719744-B2
Application number	US-202217573680-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 12, 2022
Priority date	Jan 19, 2021
Publication date	Aug 8, 2023
Grant date	Aug 8, 2023

Abstract

An inspection apparatus includes: an acquisition part configured to acquire first coordinate information indicating a position of an inspection object on a stage and a plurality of pieces of second coordinate information indicating positions of a plurality of temperature sensors on the stage when performing an inspection of the inspection object; a calculation part configured to calculate a Mahalanobis distance between a position specified by an average vector of the first coordinate information and the positions of the plurality of temperature sensors; a selection part configured to select at least one temperature sensor including a temperature sensor having a smallest Mahalanobis distance, among the plurality of temperature sensors; and a controller configured to control a temperature of the inspection object using temperature data measured by the selected at least one temperature sensor.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An inspection apparatus comprising:
at least one processor; and
at least one memory configured to store instructions which, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations,
wherein the at least one processor is configured to:
acquire first coordinate information indicating a position of an inspection object on a stage and a plurality of pieces of second coordinate information indicating positions of a plurality of temperature sensors on the stage when performing an inspection of the inspection object;
calculate a Mahalanobis distance between a position specified by an average vector of the first coordinate information and the positions of the plurality of temperature sensors;
select at least one temperature sensor including a temperature sensor having a smallest Mahalanobis distance, among the plurality of temperature sensors; and
control a temperature of the inspection object using temperature data measured by the selected at least one temperature sensor, and

wherein the at least one processor is further configured to select m high-ranked temperature sensors having relatively short Mahalanobis distances (where, m is an integer of 1 or more), among the plurality of temperature sensors.

2. The inspection apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the average vector of the first coordinate information is an x-coordinate average value and a y-coordinate average value of coordinates indicating the position of the inspection object.

3. The inspection apparatus of claim 1 , wherein, when the plurality of temperature sensors are selected, the at least one processor is further configured to weight and sum respective temperature data measured by the selected plurality of temperature sensors according to the Mahalanobis distance.

4. The inspection apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is configured to acquire the first coordinate information by capturing the inspection object which has moved to an inspection position.

5. The inspection apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is configured to acquire each vertex of the inspection object as the first coordinate information.

6. A control method comprising:
acquiring first coordinate information indicating a position of an inspection object on a stage and a plurality of pieces of second coordinate information indicating positions of a plurality of temperature sensors on the stage when performing an inspection of the inspection object;
calculating a Mahalanobis distance between a position specified by an average vector of the first coordinate information and the positions of the plurality of temperature sensors;
selecting at least one temperature sensor including a temperature sensor having a smallest Mahalanobis distance, among the plurality of temperature sensors; and
controlling a temperature of the inspection object using temperature data measured by the selected at least one temperature sensor,
wherein the selecting the at least one temperature sensor includes selecting m high-ranked temperature sensors having relatively short Mahalanobis distances (where, m is an integer of 1 or more), among the plurality of temperature sensors.

7. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a control program that causes a computer to execute:
acquiring first coordinate information indicating a position of an inspection object on a stage and a plurality of pieces of second coordinate information indicating positions of a plurality of temperature sensors on the stage when performing an inspection of the inspection object;
calculating a Mahalanobis distance between a position specified by an average vector of the first coordinate information and the positions of the plurality of temperature sensors;
selecting at least one temperature sensor including a temperature sensor having a smallest Mahalanobis distance, among the plurality of temperature sensors; and
controlling a temperature of the inspection object using temperature data measured by the selected at least one temperature sensor,
wherein the selecting the at least one temperature sensor includes selecting m high-ranked temperature sensors having relatively short Mahalanobis distances (where, m is an integer of 1 or more), among the plurality of temperature sensors.

Assignees

• Tokyo Electron Ltd

Inventors

• Nakayama Hiroyuki

Classifications

• G01R31/2874 Primary

  related to temperature · CPC title

• G01R31/2831

  Testing of materials or semi-finished products, e.g. semiconductor wafers or substrates (G01R31/318511 takes precedence; testing during manufacture H10P74/00) · CPC title

• G01R31/2867

  Handlers or transport devices, e.g. loaders, carriers, trays · CPC title

• G01R31/2601 Primary

  Apparatus or methods therefor (G01R31/2607, G01R31/2642 take precedence) · CPC title

• G01K1/026 Primary

  arrangements for monitoring a plurality of temperatures, e.g. by multiplexing · CPC title