Charged particle beam apparatus that performs image classification assistance

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9280814-B2
Application number	US-201214238561-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 4, 2012
Priority date	Sep 29, 2011
Publication date	Mar 8, 2016
Grant date	Mar 8, 2016

Abstract

The charged particle beam apparatus automatically judges the good or bad of an observation object on the basis of information obtained from an image of the observation object on a wafer; displays a judgment result on a screen; displays the observation object, extracted from the judgment result, that requires to be corrected on the basis of the good or bad of the observation object from a user; and corrects the judgment result to the extracted and displayed observation object on the basis of an instruction from the user.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A charged particle beam apparatus for radiating a charged particle beam to a previously specified coordinate position contained in a plurality of observation objects on a wafer, thereby acquiring an image corresponding to the coordinate position and judging the good or bad of the observation objects on the basis of information obtained from the image, the charged particle beam apparatus comprising:
an automatic defect classification (ADC) processing unit for classifying the image on the basis of the information obtained from the image, thereby judging the good or bad of the observation objects;
a manual defect classification (MDC) processing unit for conducting MDC processing for correcting a classification result of the image by the ADC processing unit in accordance with an instruction from a user;
a display unit for displaying a judgment result by the ADC processing unit; and
a parameter setting device for adjusting a parameter used in the judgment in the ADC processing unit, wherein:
the MDC processing unit extracts the observation objects to be MDC-processed on the basis of the judgment result by the ADC processing unit,
the display unit displays the image corresponding to the coordinate position contained in the observation object extracted by the MDC processing unit as an object to be MDC-processed, and a map in such a way that the good or bad of at least the observation objects are distinguished from each other, and
the judgment result of the ADC processing unit is updated in accordance with a value of the parameter, when the parameter is changed by the parameter setting device.

2. The charged particle beam apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein
the judgment result by the ADC processing unit is expressed by one or more of a map of the good or bad, the number of a non-defective product, the number of a defective product, an occurrence rate of the non-defective product, an occurrence rate of the defective product, an observation image, defect area information on the observation image, a reference image, and ADC result.

3. The charged particle beam apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the wafer is a wafer manufactured by changing exposure conditions for chips within the wafer.

4. The charged particle beam apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein charged particle beam apparatus has means for determining an order of the observation objects on which the MDC processing is conducted on the basis of the good or bad judgment result of the observation objects by the ADC processing unit.

5. The charged particle beam apparatus according to claim 4 , wherein the order is determined on the basis of information obtained from the good or bad judgment result of the adjacent observation objects or the corresponding to the coordinate position contained in the observation objects.

6. The charged particle beam apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the charged particle beam apparatus has means for determining an order of the image on which the MDC processing is to be conducted on the basis of a degree of risk of error occurrence in the coordinate position by the ADC processing unit.

7. The charged particle beam apparatus according to claim 1 further comprising:
means for grouping an area on the specimen by the observation objects on the basis of position information on the specimen.

8. The charged particle beam apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein
the MDC processing unit determines the good or bad judgment to the observation objects at a point when the number of defects contained in the observation objects exceeds a predetermined threshold.

9. A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium in which a program executed in an image processing apparatus for judging the good or bad of a plurality of observation objects on a wafer based on information obtained from images, of previously specified coordinate position contained in the observation objects, that are obtained by radiating a charged particle beam to the previously specified coordinate position is recorded, wherein:
the program, when executed, causes the image processing apparatus to execute:
performing automatic defect classification (ADC) processing for classifying the image on the basis of the information obtained from the image, thereby judging the good or bad of the observation objects;
displaying a judgment result by the ADC processing;
adjusting a parameter used in the judgment in the ADC processing;
performing manual defect classification (MDC) processing for correcting a classification result of the image in the coordinate position contained in the observation objects extracted on the basis of the result in accordance with an instruction from a user is conducted;
displaying a map in such a way that the good or bad of at least the observation objects are distinguished from each other; and
updating the judgment result of the ADC processing in accordance with a value of the parameter, when the parameter is changed.

Assignees

• Hirai Takehiro
• Obara Kenji
• Miyake Kozo
• Hitachi High Tech Corp

Inventors

• Hirai Takehiro
• Obara Kenji
• Miyake Kozo

Classifications

• H10P74/203 Primary

  Structural properties, e.g. testing or measuring thicknesses, line widths, warpage, bond strengths or physical defects · CPC title

• H10P74/23

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

• G06T7/0004 Primary

  Industrial image inspection · CPC title

• H01J2237/2817

  Pattern inspection · CPC title

• H01L22/12

  Electricity · mapped topic