Overlay improvement for semiconductor manufacturing using Moiré effect

Hagio, Yoshinori; Kasa, Kentaro; Kawadahara, Sho; Takakuwa, Manabu; Takahata, Yosuke; Kato, Katsuya; Nakae, Aya

doi:10.1109/asmc49169.2020.9185396

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 1 publication

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…And studies for viewing the spacing of patterns that cannot be considered by optical resolution are being conducted. [25][26][27][28] In addition, there is research 29,30 to reduce TIS using machine learning to improve measurement performance, and research to apply artificial intelligence to semiconductor processes will be an important field for overlay measurement in the future.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Image-based overlay target design using a grating intersection

Lee¹,

Chang²,

Shin³

et al. 2022

J. Micro/Nanopattern. Mats. Metro.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: An overlay target design is essential before performing overlay metrology and has a great impact on overlay performance. In addition, accurate overlay metrology is required to achieve high product yields in semiconductor manufacturing. When asymmetry of the overlay target occurs, it is necessary to increase the area of the pattern existing in the target and stabilize the optical aberration for stable measurement. For this reason, we propose an image-based overlay target design that can secure a larger area compared with the existing overlay target and stabilize the optical aberration by overlapping and exposing the upper and lower patterns of the overlay target.Aim: The effective area of the existing mark design is improved by proposing an overlay target and a measurement method used in image-based overlay measurement.Approach: The proposed overlay target design is configured by arranging different marks orthogonally to the upper and lower layers, and different two-dimensional information can be inserted in the same area. When necessary, single-dimensional information desired by the user can be obtained through a technique called projection, and it has the advantage of using a larger effective area than the existing overlay target.Results: Overlay can be measured using projected signal components, and the possibility and performance of the proposed target can be confirmed through simulation and test wafer. In addition, it was possible to bring about a 15% improvement in total measurement uncertainty performance compared with the existing advanced imaging metrology (AIM) target by taking a wider effective area.Conclusions: An overlay target design is proposed to solve the technical problems of the existing overlay target design. The proposed overlay target has a method that is capable of minimizing the size of the overlay target while maximally maintaining the signal density, a way of reducing the influence of aberration, and various other advantages.In addition, the proposed method provides a design rule that breaks the "lower pattern and upper pattern must not overlap" framework.

show abstract