Scanner overlay correction system and method
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorsYen-Di TSEN, Shin-Rung LU, Jong-I MOU
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Abstract
A method includes performing a semiconductor fabrication process on a plurality of substrates. The plurality of substrates are divided into a first subset and a second subset. A rework process is performed on the second subset of the plurality of substrates but not on the first subset. A respective mean value of at least one exposure parameter for a lithography process is computed for each respective one of the first and second subsets of the plurality of substrates. A scanner overlay correction and a mean correction are applied to expose a second plurality of substrates on which the rework process has been performed. The mean correction is based on the computed mean values.
Claims20
A control apparatus comprising:
- a controller configured to determine whether a semiconductor substrate to be exposed by a scanner has been subjected to a rework process;
- and
- a non-transitory, machine readable storage medium containing a mean correction value to be applied to the scanner for exposing the semiconductor substrate if the semiconductor substrate has been subjected to the rework process, wherein:
- the controller is configured to control the scanner using a scanner overlay correction, and
- the controller is further configured to apply the mean correction value to adjust an exposure parameter of the scanner if the semiconductor substrate to be exposed by the scanner has been subjected to the rework process.
A control apparatus comprising:
- a controller configured to determine whether a semiconductor substrate to be exposed by a scanner has been subjected to a first set of fabrication processes process;
- and
- a non-transitory, machine readable storage medium containing a mean correction value to be applied to the scanner for exposing the semiconductor substrate if the semiconductor substrate has been subjected to a second set of fabrication processes different from the first set of fabrication processes, wherein:
- the controller is configured to control the scanner using a scanner overlay correction, wherein:
- the controller is further configured to apply the mean correction value to adjust an exposure parameter of the scanner if the semiconductor substrate to be exposed by the scanner has been subjected to the second set of fabrication processes, and
- the controller is configured to control the scanner to expose substrates subjected to the first set of fabrication processes, without using the mean correction.
Apparatus comprising:
- a scanner;
- and
- a controller for controlling operation of the scanner, the controller configured to determine whether a semiconductor substrate to be exposed by the scanner has been subjected to a rework process;
- and
- a non-transitory, machine readable storage medium containing a mean correction value to be applied to the scanner for exposing the semiconductor substrate if the semiconductor substrate has been subjected to the rework process, wherein:
- the controller is configured to control the scanner using a scanner overlay correction, and
- the controller is further configured to apply the mean correction value to adjust an exposure parameter of the scanner if the semiconductor substrate to be exposed by the scanner has been subjected to the rework process.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.