System and method to adjust a kinetics model of surface reactions during plasma processing

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11966203-B2
Application number	US-202016872879-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 12, 2020
Priority date	Aug 21, 2019
Publication date	Apr 23, 2024
Grant date	Apr 23, 2024

Abstract

A system is disclosed, in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present disclosure. The system includes a metrology tool configured to acquire one or more measurements of a portion of a sample. The system includes a controller including one or more processors configured to execute program instructions causing the one or more processors to: generate a surface kinetics model output based on a surface kinetics model; determine an expected response of the surface kinetics model output to excitation by polarized light; compare the determined expected response to the one or more measurements; generate one or more metrics based on the comparison between the determined expected response and the one or more measurements of the sample; adjust one or more parameters of the surface kinetics model to generate an adjusted surface kinetics model; and apply the adjusted surface kinetics model to simulate on-sample performance during plasma processing.

First claim

What is claimed:

1. A system, comprising:
a metrology tool, wherein the metrology tool is configured to acquire one or more measurements of a portion of a sample; and
a controller communicatively coupled to the metrology tool, the controller including one or more processors configured to execute program instructions causing the one or more processors to:
generate a surface kinetics model output based on a surface kinetics model, wherein the surface kinetics model is run based on an initial guess of one or more parameters of the surface kinetics model;
determine an expected response of the surface kinetics model output to excitation by polarized light using one or more additional parameters of the surface kinetics model, wherein the one or more additional parameters comprise one or more parameters not used during the initial guess of one or more parameters of the surface kinetics model;
compare the determined expected response to the one or more measurements of the sample received from the metrology tool;
generate one or more metrics based on the comparison between the determined expected response and the one or more measurements of the sample;
adjust the one or more parameters of the surface kinetics model based on the one or more metrics to generate an adjusted surface kinetics model; and
apply the adjusted surface kinetics model to simulate on-sample performance during plasma processing of the sample; and
generate one or more control signals configured to selectively adjust one or more characteristics of one or more process tools based on the adjusted surface kinetics model.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the generating an adjusted surface kinetics model comprises:
generating an adjusted surface kinetics model output based on the one or more adjusted parameters until convergence is achieved, wherein the convergence is defined based on the one or more metrics being lower than a threshold tolerance value.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the threshold tolerance value is between 1×10 −10 and 5000.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the metrology tool comprises at least one of:
an optical critical dimension (OCD) tool, a critical-dimension scanning electron microscopy (CD-SEM) tool, a transmission electron microscopy (TEM) tool, or a cross-section scanning electron microscopy (X-SEM) tool.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the surface kinetics model output comprises a profile configured to describe a shape of a feature of the sample.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the surface kinetics model output comprises one or more critical shape parameters configured to allow for reconstruction of a shape of a feature of the sample.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the excitation by the polarized light is configured in at least one of a reflection configuration or a transmission configuration.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the determining an expected response of the surface kinetics model output to excitation by polarized light comprises:
performing a Fourier-space method.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the determining an expected response of the surface kinetics model output to excitation by polarized light comprises:
performing a rigorous coupling wave analysis.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the determined expected response is represented as a sum of spatial harmonics as a function of wavelength of the polarized light utilized.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more metrics comprise at least one of:
a normalized sum of squared deviations between the one or more measurements of the sample and the determined expected response; a goodness of fit to describe a discrepancy between the one or more measurements of the sample and the determined expected response; or an at least squares sum of the deviations between the one or more measurements of the sample and the determined expected response.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the adjusting the one or more parameters of the surface kinetics model based on the one or more metrics to generate an adjusted surface kinetics model comprises:
adjusting the one or more parameters using an optimization algorithm.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the optimization algorithm comprises:
a gradient descent method, wherein the gradient method is configured to find a minimum of the one or more metrics.

14. The system of claim 13 , further comprising:
adjusting the gradient method using a stochastic gradient descent method, wherein the stochastic gradient descent method is configured to randomly select samples to evaluate a gradient.

15. The system of claim 1 , wherein the surface kinetics model is configured to be run simultaneously on one or more sites across the sample.

16. The system of claim 1 , wherein one or more shape parameters of the one or more parameters of the initial guess are varied based on one or more features on the sample.

17. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more additional parameters include at least one of dispersion or thickness.

18. The system of claim 1 , wherein the determining an expected response of the surface kinetics model output to excitation by polarized light comprises:
generating one or more small-angle x-ray scattering images at one or more sample rotation angles.

19. The system of claim 18 , wherein the one or more small-angle x-ray images are generated using at least one of:
grazing-incidence small-angle x-ray scattering, critical-dimension small-angle x-ray scattering, grazing-incidence transmission small-angle x-ray scattering, or soft x-ray scattering.

20. The system of claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to:
generate a machine learning model; and
train a machine learning model, wherein the trained machine learning model is utilized to adjust the one or more parameters of the surface kinetics model based on the one or more metrics to generate an adjusted surface kinetics model.

21. A method, comprising:
generating a surface kinetics model output using a surface kinetics model, wherein the surface kinetics model is run based on an initial guess of one or more parameters of the surface kinetics model;
determining an expected response of the surface kinetics model output to excitation by polarized light using one or more additional parameters of the surface kinetics model, wherein the one or more additional parameters comprise one or more parameters not used during the initial guess of one or more parameters of the surface kinetics model;
comparing the determined expected response with one or more measurements of a sample received from a metrology tool;
generating one or more metrics based on the comparison between the determined expected response and the one or more measurements of the sample;
adjusting the one or more parameters of the surface kinetics model based on the one or more metrics to generate an adjusted surface kinetics model; and
applying the adjusted surface kinetics model to simulate on-sample performance during plasma processing of the sample; and
generating one or more control signals configured to selectively adjust one or more characteristics of one or more process tools based on the adjusted surface kinetics model.

22. The method of claim 21 , wherein the generating an adjusted surface kinetics model comprises:
generating an adjusted surface kinetics model output based on the one or more adjusted parameters until convergence is achieved, wherein the convergence is defined based on the

Assignees

• Kla Corp

Inventors

• Agarwal Ankur
• Huard Chad
• Zhang Yiting
• Pu Haifeng
• Li Xin
• Panneerchelvam Premkumar
• Han Fiddle
• Chen Yeurui

Classifications

• H10P74/23

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

• G05B13/042 Primary

  in which a parameter or coefficient is automatically adjusted to optimise the performance · CPC title

• G01B11/24

  for measuring contours or curvatures · CPC title

• G01B15/045

  by measuring absorption · CPC title

• G01N21/21

  Polarisation-affecting properties (G01N21/19 takes precedence) · CPC title