Semiconductor wafer inspection system

• US 20060276976A1
• Filed: 08/15/2006
• Published: 12/07/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/03/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qcept Investments, LLC
• Original Assignee: Qcept Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Steele, M. Brandon, Hawthorne, Jeffrey Alan
• Granted Patent: US 7,379,826 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/35
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 2033/0095 Semiconductive materials
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 27/002 by investigating the work function voltage

Abstract

A method and system for identifying a defect or contamination on a surface of a material. The method and system involves providing a material, such as a semiconductor wafer, using a non-vibrating contact potential difference sensor to scan the wafer, generate contact potential difference data and processing that data to identify a pattern characteristic of the defect or contamination.

Claims

1. A system for detecting at least one of chemical, physical and electrical non-uniformity is on a wafer service comprising

a device to hold a wafer at a surface;

a contact potential difference sense are having a probe tip;

a device to scan the wafer surface laterally relative to the contact potential difference a sensor;

and electrical current to generate sensor data representative of changes in the contact potential difference between the sensor probe tip any wafer surface as a sensor probe tip scans laterally across different locations on the wafer surface; and

an analytic device for processing the contact potential difference sensor data to detect a pattern that represents a defect.