Method and system for identifying a center of a pattern using automatic thresholding
AssigneeASML Netherlands B.V.
InventorYifei MENG
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for selecting a threshold value for processing an image to determine characteristics of a pattern. The method includes accessing an image representation of a pattern and generating multiple two-dimensional (2D) profiles of a feature of the pattern using different threshold values, wherein each 2D profile of the 2D profiles corresponds to a respective threshold value. The 2D profiles are evaluated to determine a KPI value of the 2D profiles and a specified threshold value from a range of threshold values is selected based on the evaluation of the 2D profiles.
Claims20
A method for determining a central location of a feature of a pattern by selecting a threshold value for processing an image representative of the pattern, the method comprising:
- accessing an image representation representative of a pattern;
- iteratively thresholding the image representation using different threshold values to generate multiple profiles of a first feature of the pattern, wherein each profile of the multiple profiles corresponds to a respective threshold value;
- selecting a specified threshold value of the different threshold values based on a characteristic parameter associated with the multiple profiles;
- and
- determining a central location of the feature using a profile generated using the specified threshold value.
A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions recorded thereon, the instructions, when executed by a computer system, configured to cause the computer system to at least:
- access an image representation representative of a pattern;
- iteratively threshold the image representation using different threshold values to generate multiple profiles of a feature of the pattern, wherein each profile of the multiple profiles corresponds to a respective threshold value;
- select a specified threshold value of the different threshold values based on a characteristic parameter associated with the multiple profiles;
- and
- determine a central location of the feature using a profile generated using the specified threshold value.
A method for selecting a threshold value in processing an image to determine characteristics of a pattern to be printed on a substrate, the method comprising:
- accessing an image representation of a pattern to be printed on a substrate;
- generating multiple profiles of a feature of the pattern by processing the image representation using different threshold values, wherein each profile of the profiles corresponds to a respective threshold value;
- evaluating the profiles;
- and
- selecting a specified threshold value of the threshold values based on the evaluating.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.