Setting up inspection of a specimen

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11748872-B2
Application number	US-202117165826-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 2, 2021
Priority date	Aug 31, 2020
Publication date	Sep 5, 2023
Grant date	Sep 5, 2023

Abstract

Methods and systems for setting up inspection of a specimen are provided. One system includes one or more computer subsystems configured for acquiring a reference image for a specimen and modifying the reference image to fit the reference image to a design grid thereby generating a golden grid image. The one or more computer subsystems are also configured for storing the golden grid image for use in inspection of the specimen. The inspection includes aligning a test image of the specimen generated from output of an inspection subsystem to the golden grid image.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system configured for setting up inspection of a specimen, comprising:
an inspection subsystem configured to generate output responsive to energy detected from a specimen; and
one or more computer subsystems configured for:
acquiring a reference image of the specimen;
modifying the reference image to fit the reference image to a design grid thereby generating a golden grid image; and
storing the golden grid image for use in inspection of the specimen, wherein the inspection comprises aligning a test image of the specimen generated from the output of the inspection subsystem to the golden grid image.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein generating the golden grid image comprises removing random defects from the reference image.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein generating the golden grid image comprises removing a signature specific to the inspection subsystem from the reference image.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein generating the golden grid image comprises removing a signature specific to the specimen from the reference image.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein modifying the reference image comprises stretching the reference image in one or more dimensions.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein modifying the reference image comprises rotation of the reference image.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein modifying the reference image comprises interpolating pixels of the reference image to fit the design grid.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more computer subsystems are further configured for defining one or more care area regions in the golden grid image, wherein the inspection subsystem and the one or more computer subsystems are further configured for performing the inspection of the specimen, and wherein the inspection further comprises defining one or more care area regions in the test image based on results of said aligning the test image to the golden grid image and the one or more care area regions defined in the golden grid image.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more computer subsystems are further configured for defining one or more mask regions in the golden grid image, wherein the inspection subsystem and the one or more computer subsystems are further configured for performing the inspection of the specimen, and wherein the inspection further comprises defining one or more mask regions in the test image based on results of said aligning the test image to the golden grid image and the one or more mask regions defined in the golden grid image.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more computer subsystems are further configured for rendering a runtime context map from the golden grid image and storing the runtime context map for use in the inspection of the specimen.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the runtime context map is used for inspection of at least one other specimen of the same type as the specimen.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the inspection subsystem and the one or more computer subsystems are further configured for performing the inspection of the specimen, and wherein the inspection further comprises detecting defects on the specimen based on the golden grid image and the test image and determining one or more attributes for the defects based on the golden grid image.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the inspection further comprises performing nuisance filtering of the defects based on the one or more attributes determined for the defects.

14. The system of claim 1 , wherein aligning the test image to the golden grid image comprises modifying the test image to thereby align the test image to the golden grid image.

15. The system of claim 14 , wherein the inspection subsystem and the one or more computer subsystems are further configured for performing the inspection of the specimen, and wherein the inspection further comprises determining one or more parameters of a defect detection method based on results of said aligning the test image to the golden grid image and detecting defects on the specimen by applying the defect detection method with the determined one or more parameters to the modified test image.

16. The system of claim 14 , wherein the inspection subsystem and the one or more computer subsystems are further configured for performing the inspection of the specimen, and wherein the inspection further comprises detecting defects on the specimen by subtracting the golden grid image from the modified test image.

17. The system of claim 1 , wherein storing the golden grid image comprises storing the golden grid image for use in the inspection of the specimen and inspection of at least one other specimen of the same type as the specimen.

18. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more computer subsystems are further configured for re-training the inspection by acquiring a new reference image of an additional specimen of the same type as the specimen, modifying the new reference image to fit the new reference image to the design grid thereby generating a new golden grid image, and storing the new golden grid image for use in the inspection of the additional specimen.

19. The system of claim 1 , wherein the inspection subsystem is further configured to generate the output for the specimen with first and second modes of the inspection subsystem, wherein the reference image is acquired for the first mode, wherein the one or more computer subsystems are further configured for acquiring an additional reference image of the specimen and the second mode, modifying the additional reference image to fit the additional reference image to the design grid thereby generating an additional golden grid image, and storing the additional golden grid image for use in the inspection of the specimen, and wherein the inspection further comprises aligning a test image of the specimen generated from the output of the inspection subsystem generated with the second mode to the additional golden grid image.

20. The system of claim 1 , wherein storing the golden grid image comprises storing the golden grid image for use in the inspection of the specimen and inspection of at least one other specimen of the same type as the specimen, and wherein the inspection of the at least one other specimen comprises aligning a test image of the at least one other specimen generated from output of an additional inspection subsystem responsive to energy detected from the at least one other specimen to the golden grid image.

21. The system of claim 1 , wherein the specimen is a wafer.

22. The system of claim 1 , wherein the inspection subsystem is a light-based inspection subsystem.

23. The system of claim 1 , wherein the inspection subsystem is an electron-based inspection subsystem.

24. A non-transitory computer-readable medium, storing program instructions executable on a computer system for performing a computer-implemented method for setting up inspection of a specimen, wherein the computer-implemented method comprises:
acquiring a reference image of a specimen;
modifying the reference image to fit the reference image to a design grid thereby generating a golden grid image; and
storing the golden grid image for use in inspection of the specimen, wherein the inspection comprises aligning a test image of the specimen generated from output of an inspection subsystem responsive to energy detected from the specimen to the golden grid image, and wherein said acquiring, modifying, and

Assignees

• Kla Corp

Inventors

• Chen Hong
• Brauer Bjorn
• Sezginer Abdurrahman
• Park Sangbong
• Cong Ge
• Li Xiaochun

Classifications

• G06T7/001 Primary

  using an image reference approach · CPC title

• G01N21/9501

  Semiconductor wafers (manufacturing processes per se of semiconductor devices implementing a measuring step H10P74/20) · CPC title

• G01N21/8806

  Specially adapted optical and illumination features · CPC title

• G01N2021/8861

  Determining coordinates of flaws · CPC title

• G06T2207/20224

  Image subtraction · CPC title