Method for enhancing the measurement capability of multi-parameter inspection systems

A method for enhancing the measurement capability of multi-parameter inspection systems, comprising:

• performing a measuring procedure to acquire a measured signature of a sample;
• calculating a plurality of weighting factors representing a correlation between structural parameters of the sample by using a weighting algorithm;
• generating a sampling function with sampling numbers corresponding to the weighting factors;
• performing another measuring procedure to acquire an updated measured signature of the sample and generating a plurality of nominal signatures according to the sampling numbers of the sampling function;
• comparing the updated measured signature and the nominal signatures to determine structural parameters of the sample;
• and
• wherein the weighting algorithm is a linear artificial neural network algorithm.

A multi-parameter inspection system, comprising:

• a nominal signature-generating module configured to generate a plurality of nominal signatures according to predetermined values of structural parameters of a sample;
• a calculating module configured to calculate weighting factors representing a correlation between the structural parameters of the sample;
• a sampling module configured to update a sampling number according to the weighting factors;
• a measuring module configured to acquire a measured signature of the sample according to the sampling number;
• a comparing module configured to determine the structural parameters of the sample according to the measured signature and the nominal signatures;
• and
• wherein the calculating module calculates the weighting factors according to a linear artificial neural network algorithm.