US 2017/0249732 A1Published application

Method and System for Detecting Defects on a Substrate

AssigneeKLA-Tencor Corporation

InventorsPremchandra M. Shankar, Ashok Varadarajan

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Abstract

An inspection method includes receiving a plurality of inspection images of a substrate. The method includes generating a first noise image from a first image from the first channel and an additional noise image from the additional image from the additional channel. The method further includes generating a first signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) image from the first noise image and an additional SNR image from the additional noise image and identifying one or more first pixel candidates in the first SNR image and in the additional SNR image. The method further includes combining image data from the first SNR image and image data from the additional SNR image at common pixel candidate sites based on the one or more identified first pixel candidates and the one or more identified additional pixel candidates to form a combined image used to detect defects on the substrate.

Claims22

Dependent claims

A method for providing substrate inspection comprising:

receiving a plurality of inspection images of a substrate, wherein the plurality of inspection images include two or more images from two or more channels of an inspection system;
generating a first noise image based on a first image from a first channel and an additional noise image based on an additional image from an additional channel;
generating a first signal-to-noise ratio image based on the first noise image and an additional signal-to-noise ratio image based on the additional noise image;
identifying one or more first pixel candidates in the first signal-to-noise ratio image and one or more additional pixel candidates in the additional signal-to-noise ratio image;
combining image data from the first signal-to-noise ratio image and image data from the additional signal-to-noise ratio image at common pixel candidate sites based on the one or more identified first pixel candidates and the one or more identified additional pixel candidates to form a combined image;
and
detecting defects on the substrate using the combined image.

4 more elements

An inspection apparatus comprising:

an inspection system for acquiring a set of inspection results from a substrate;
and
a controller communicatively coupled to the inspection system, the controller including one or more processors for executing a set of program instructions stored in memory, the set of program instructions configured to cause the one or more processors to:
receive a plurality of inspection results of a substrate, wherein the plurality of inspection results includes a first image from a first channel of the inspection system and at least an additional image from an additional channel from the inspection system;
generate a first noise image based on the first image from the first channel and an additional noise image based on the additional image from the additional channel;
generate a first signal-to-noise ratio image based on the first noise image and an additional signal-to-noise ratio image based on the additional noise image;
identify one or more first pixel candidates in the first signal-to-noise ratio image and one or more additional pixel candidates in the additional signal-to-noise ratio image;
combine image data from the first signal-to-noise ratio image and image data from the additional signal-to-noise ratio image at common pixel candidate sites based on the one or more identified first pixel candidates and the one or more additional pixel candidates to form a combined image;
and
detect defects on the substrate using the combined image.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.