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US 2018/0003647 A1Published application
Block-to-Block Reticle Inspection
AssigneeKLA-Tencor Corporation
InventorsAbdurrahman Sezginer, Patrick LoPresti, Joe Blecher, Rui-fang Shi, Yalin Xiong, John Fielden
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Block-to-block reticle inspection includes acquiring a swath image of a portion of a reticle with a reticle inspection sub-system, identifying a first occurrence of a block in the swatch image and at least a second occurrence of the block in the swath image substantially similar to the first occurrence of the block and determining at least one of a location, one or more geometrical characteristics of the block and a spatial offset between the first occurrence of the block and the at least a second occurrence of the block.
Claims18
A method for design database assisted block-to-block reticle inspection comprising:
- identifying a set of repeating blocks of a reticle within a design database of the reticle;
- determining one or more spatial characteristics associated with the set of repeating blocks of the reticle;
- storing the one or more spatial characteristics associated with the set of repeating blocks of the reticle
- acquiring an image of a portion of the reticle with a reticle inspection sub-system;
- identifying a first portion of the acquired image corresponding with a first member of the set of repeating blocks according to the stored spatial characteristics associated with the set of repeating blocks;
- identifying a second portion of the acquired image that corresponds to a second member of the set of repeating blocks according to the stored spatial characteristics associated with the set of repeating blocks;
- aligning the first portion of the acquired image and the second portion of the acquired image;
- generating a difference of image by performing a subtraction routine on the first portion of the acquired image and the second portion of the acquired image;
- and
- identifying one or more defects on the reticle with the generated difference image.
7 more elements
A system comprising:
- a reticle inspection sub-system configured for scanning a swath image of a portion of a reticle with a reticle inspection system;
- and
- a controller including one or more processors configured to execute a set of program instructions maintained on a memory, the program instructions configured to cause the one or more processors to:
- identify a set of repeating blocks of a reticle within a design database of the reticle;
- determine one or more spatial characteristics associated with the set of repeating blocks of the reticle;
- store the one or more spatial characteristics associated with the set of repeating blocks of the reticle
- acquire an image of a portion of the reticle with a reticle inspection sub-system;
- identify a first portion of the acquired image corresponding with a first member of the set of repeating blocks according to the stored spatial characteristics associated with the set of repeating blocks;
- identify a second portion of the acquired image that corresponds to a second member of the set of repeating blocks according to the stored spatial characteristics associated with the set of repeating blocks;
- align the first portion of the acquired image and the second portion of the acquired image;
- generate a difference of image by performing a subtraction routine on the first portion of the acquired image and the second portion of the acquired image;
- and
- identify one or more defects on the reticle with the generated difference image.
10 more elements
A system comprising:
- a controller including one or more processors configured to execute a set of program instructions maintained on a memory, the program instructions configured to cause the one or more processors to:
- identify a set of repeating blocks of a reticle within a design database of the reticle;
- determine one or more spatial characteristics associated with the set of repeating blocks of the reticle;
- store the one or more spatial characteristics associated with the set of repeating blocks of the reticle
- receive an image of a portion of the reticle from a reticle inspection sub-system;
- identify a first portion of the acquired image corresponding with a first member of the set of repeating blocks according to the stored spatial characteristics associated with the set of repeating blocks;
- identify a second portion of the acquired image that corresponds to a second member of the set of repeating blocks according to the stored spatial characteristics associated with the set of repeating blocks;
- align the first portion of the acquired image and the second portion of the acquired image;
- generate a difference of image by performing a subtraction routine on the first portion of the acquired image and the second portion of the acquired image;
- and
- identify one or more defects on the reticle with the generated difference image.
8 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.