New apparent beam width artifact and measurement methodology for CD-SEM resolution monitoring

Mayer, Jason A.; Huizenga, Kylee J.; Solecky, Eric; Archie, Charles N.; Banke, G. W.; Cogley, Robert M.; Nathan, Claudine; Roberts, J. M.

doi:10.1117/12.485035

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Hence, a series of preliminary studies were done to to assess the potential of this technology for these purposes. The work includes (1) the basic imaging configurations to assess signal-to-noise conditions, (2) resist damage section comparing performance of the HIM for two different resist systems currently being used in semiconductor lithography, (3) application of a measure of the apparent beam reporting on a resolution measure that is in common use in the semiconductor industry [34][35][36][37], and (4) an assessment of the HIM for cross section imaging mode.…”

Section: Him For Semiconductor Production Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The idea is to use a typical measurand in semiconductor manufacturing such as a photoresist line (as in these experiments) and determine the edge width using common topographic locations. Providing that the edge profile is vertical or even undercut, the edge has been shown to be a sensitive measure of 'resolution' under imaging conditions appropriate for metrology of that particular material or structure [34][35][36][37]. When the edge profile is not ideal, this measure overestimates the true ABW.…”

Section: Apparent Beam Widthmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But, one must always keep in mind that one sample may work better than another for a particular set of operating conditions or instrument design, so one must be continually vigilant that fair evaluations are made. In order to minimize this issue, the semiconductor manufacturing has adopted the concept of apparent beam width or ABW [34][35][36][37]. ABW represents a rough measure of the edge location uncertainty.…”

Section: Apparent Beam Widthmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Review of current progress in nanometrology with the helium ion microscope

Postek

Vladár

Archie

et al. 2010

Meas. Sci. Technol.

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Scanning electron microscopy has been employed as an imaging and measurement tool for more than 50 years and it continues as a primary tool in many research and manufacturing facilities across the world. A new challenger to this work is the helium ion microscope (HIM). The HIM is a new imaging and metrology technology. Essentially, substitution of the electron source with a helium ion source yields a tool visually similar in function to the scanning electron microscope, but very different in the fundamental imaging and measurement process. The imaged and measured signal originates differently than in the scanning electron microscope and that fact and its single atom source diameter may be able to push the obtainable resolution lower, provide greater depth-of-field and ultimately improve the metrology. Successful imaging and metrology with this instrument entails understanding and modeling of new ion beam/specimen interaction physics. As a new methodology, HIM is beginning to show promise and the abundance of potentially advantageous applications for nanometrology has yet to be fully exploited. This paper discusses some of the progress made at NIST in collaboration with IBM to understand the science behind this new technology.

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Section: Him For Semiconductor Production Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Apparent Beam Widthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Apparent Beam Widthmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Review of current progress in nanometrology with the helium ion microscope

Postek

Vladár

Archie

et al. 2010

Meas. Sci. Technol.

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“…demonstrated the great sensitivity of daily monitoring approach to physical changing in tool functionality. The CD SEM Resolution Monitoring application based on Apparent Beam Width (ABW) artifact is described in [13]. This target is closely related to another resolution targets considered in [8,10].…”

Section: Monitoring Of Physical Parameters Of CD Sem Tool As a Way Fomentioning

confidence: 99%

Physical matching versus CD matching for CD SEM

et al. 2007

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CD-SEMs fleet matching is a widely discussed subject and various approaches and procedures to determine it were described in the literature. The different approaches for matching are all based on statistical treatment of CD measurements that are performed on dedicated test structures. The test structures are a limited finite set of features, thus the matching results should be treated as valid only for the specific defined set of test features. The credibility of the matching should be in question for different layers and specifically production layers. Since matching is crucial for reliable process monitoring by a fleet of CD-SEMs, the current matching approaches (such as TMU) must be extended so that the matching will be only tool dependent and reproducible on all layers regardless their specific material or topographic characteristics. In this work the term "Physical Matching" is introduced and a new matching procedure based on physical parameters is described. This approach extends the conventional matching methods to enable significant improvement of the matching between CD-SEM tools in production environment. To study and demonstrate the physical matching, we focus on limited parameters set -the image brightness and Signal/Noise ratio (SNR). We test the sensitivity of CD measurements to changes in these parameters both on different test layers -Etch and Litho. We show that sensitivity of CD based measurements is low and reasonable change of the image brightness or SNR has small effect. The advantage of the physical matching approach for case study is demonstrated. The improved matching procedures are based on new targets that are used to measure the above image parameters directly. This way it is possible to characterize correctly the physical state of the measurement tool and guarantee the same image characteristics which in turn guarantee improved matching on all layers. In the framework of the proposed matching approach a proper determination of the minimal set of physical parameters that is needed to guarantee CD-SEM tools stability and matching should be included. The proposed procedure allows fixing tool problems before CD measurements are affected.

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Influence of a combination of random noise and pattern-edge width (in pixels) on contrast-to-gradient image resolution in scanning electron microscopy

Ishitani

Sato

2006

Journal of Electron Microscopy

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The contrast-to-gradient (CG) method has been proposed previously for the evaluation of image resolution in scanning electron microscopy (SEM). In the CG algorithm, the image to be evaluated is gradually reduced to form the 1/r-reduced image (r = 1, 2, 3, ...) until the representative features of local patterns are accurately recognizable after the corresponding r-th noise reduction. We have studied the influence of a combination of random noise and pattern-edge width (in pixels) on the CG resolution R using both PC-made test images and typical SEM images. As the random noise is larger, the value of R becomes larger (or poorer). The increase in R due to the noise influence is more significant for the narrower width of the pattern edge. This satisfactorily agrees with the common idea that the image resolution is to reflect the sharpness of the pattern edge recognized in the image noise. By revising the form of DeltaR from the weighted standard fluctuation of R to the differential of R, a significantly weak N(dot)-dependency on R has been favorably confirmed, with keeping firmly the noise-dependency on R. Here, N(dot) is the number of pattern dots in the image.

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New apparent beam width artifact and measurement methodology for CD-SEM resolution monitoring

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Review of current progress in nanometrology with the helium ion microscope

Review of current progress in nanometrology with the helium ion microscope

Physical matching versus CD matching for CD SEM

Influence of a combination of random noise and pattern-edge width (in pixels) on contrast-to-gradient image resolution in scanning electron microscopy

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