Method and apparatus to determine a patterning process parameter

A method comprising:

• obtaining a detected representation of radiation redirected from each of a plurality of design of experiment (DoE) target areas of a metrology target from a substrate, wherein each DoE target area has a structure that has an intentional different physical configuration of the respective structure than a respective nominal physical configuration of the respective structure, wherein each structure has geometric symmetry at the respective nominal physical configuration, wherein the intentional different physical configuration of the structure causes an asymmetric optical characteristic distribution and wherein each DoE target area is associated with a different set of one or more types of a same certain patterning process parameter, each set of one or more patterning process parameter types measuring a respective change in the physical configuration of the associated DoE target area;
• and
• by a hardware computer system, determining a value, based on patterning process parameter values determined from the detected representations and based on the intentional different physical configurations, to setup, monitor or correct a measurement recipe for determining the patterning process parameter.

A method comprising:

• transferring a pattern from a patterning device to a substrate;
• and
• forming, using the transferred pattern, at least part of a metrology target having three or more design of experiment (DoE) target areas, wherein each design of experiment (DoE) target area has a structure that has an intentional different physical configuration of the respective structure than a respective nominal physical configuration of the respective structure, wherein each structure has geometric symmetry at the respective nominal physical configuration, wherein the intentional different physical configuration of the structure causes an asymmetric optical characteristic distribution and wherein each design of experiment (DoE) target area is associated with a different type of a certain same patterning process parameter, each patterning process parameter type measuring a respective change in the physical configuration of the associated design of experiment (DoE) target area.

A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions therein, the instructions, when executed by a computer system, configured to cause the computer system to at least:

• obtain a detected representation of radiation redirected by each of a plurality of structures from a substrate additionally having a device pattern thereon, wherein each structure has an intentional different physical configuration of the respective structure than a respective nominal physical configuration of the respective structure, wherein each structure has geometric symmetry at the respective nominal physical configuration, wherein the intentional different physical configuration of the structure causes an asymmetric optical characteristic distribution and wherein a patterning process parameter measures chance in the physical configuration;
• and
• determine a value, based on patterning process parameter values determined from the detected representations and based on the intentional different physical configurations, to setup, monitor or correct a measurement recipe for determining the patterning process parameter.