| Shigeru Abe | Optical Inspection Systems Design Dept., Naka Div., |
| Takuaki Sekiguchi | Optical Inspection Systems Design Dept., Naka Div., |
| Hiroyuki Nakano, Dr. Eng. | Image Recognition and Inspection System Dept., Production Engineering Research Lab., |
| Minori Noguchi | Inspection Equipment Technology Center, Research and Development Div., |
The scaling down of cutting-edge semiconductor devices is just getting faster and faster. As regards the inspection technology accompanying this trend, on the semiconductor development line, all kinds of inspection devices are used, and the DOI causing a fault is detected. Drawing up specific countermeasures to control this DOI thus becomes the main target. At the same time, on the production line, high-speed monitoring—for inspection at high frequency without missing DOIs of production wafers—is becoming mainstream. To meet the above needs as semiconductor processes go beyond the 45-nm node, Hitachi has developed the IS3000 inspection system for patterned-wafers—which can perform such monitoring of defects and foreign bodies at high-speed and high-sensitivity—and implemented this system on the production line. The IS3000 can detect foreign bodies, scratches, pattern shorts, and chipping on patterned wafers at a sensitivity of 50 nm and at high speed, namely, 35-300-mm wafers per hour. In other words, it successfully combines high throughput with high sensitivity. Furthermore, it features user-friendly operability regarding recipe creation, etc., an easy dark-field classification function for automatically classifying the detected defects, an interface with SEM observation, and improved analysis capability.
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Hitachi High-Technologies |
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The Hitachi Hyoron (Japanese Only) |
wafer, inspection, defect, dark field
