Weighted regression of thickness maps from spectral data

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8992286-B2
Application number	US-201313777672-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 26, 2013
Priority date	Feb 26, 2013
Publication date	Mar 31, 2015
Grant date	Mar 31, 2015

Abstract

A method of controlling a polishing operation includes measuring a plurality of spectra at a plurality of different positions on a substrate to provide a plurality of measured spectra. For each measured spectrum of the plurality of measured spectra, a characterizing value is generated based on the measured spectrum. For each characterizing value, a goodness of fit of the measured spectrum to another spectrum used in generating the characterizing value is determined. A wafer-level characterizing value map is generated by applying a regression to the plurality of characterizing values with the plurality of goodnesses of fit used as weighting factors in the regression. A polishing endpoint or a polishing parameter of the polishing apparatus is adjusted based on the wafer-level characterizing map, and the substrate or a subsequent substrate is polished in the polishing apparatus with the adjusted polishing endpoint or polishing parameter.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of controlling a polishing operation, comprising:
measuring a plurality of spectra reflected from a substrate at a plurality of different positions on the substrate with an in-sequence or in-situ monitoring system to provide a plurality of measured spectra;
for each measured spectrum of the plurality of measured spectra, generating a characterizing value based on the measured spectrum;
for each characterizing value, determining a goodness of fit…

Assignees

• Applied Materials Inc

Inventors

• Cherian Benjamin
• David Jeffrey Drue
• Swedek Boguslaw A
• Benvegnu Dominic J
• Qian Jun
• Osterheld Thomas H

Classifications

• B24B37/013

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic

• B24B49/12 Primary

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic