Defect inspection system

• US 7,881,520 B2
• Filed: 08/10/2006
• Issued: 02/01/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/07/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi High-Tech Company Limited (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Inventors: Ueno, Taketo, Yoshitake, Yasuhiro
• Primary Examiner(s): DULANEY, KATHLEEN YUAN
• Application Number:
  US11/501,815
• Publication Number:
  US 20070053581A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,636 Days
• Field of Search: 382/145, 382/149, 438/16, 356/237.2
• US Class Current: 382/149
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 21/9501 Semiconductor wafers manufacturing processes per se of semiconductor devices implementing a measuring step H01L22/10
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 21/956 Inspecting patterns on the surface of objects contactless testing of electronic circuits G01R31/308; testing currency G07D; manufacturing processes per se of semiconductor devices implementing a measuring step H01L22/10
• CPC Class Codes: G03F 1/84 Inspecting
• CPC Class Codes: G03F 7/7065 Defects, e.g. optical inspection of patterned layer for defects
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 21/67288 Monitoring of warpage, curvature, damage, defects or the like

Abstract

The present invention relates to a defect inspection system which can perform inspection condition setting easily in a relatively short period of time, can examine the inspection condition setting even when there is no sample, and further can provide an inspection condition and a defect signal intensity to a person, who sets the inspection condition, to assist the inspection condition setting. In the defect inspection system, a defective image, which is an inspection image, and a reference image corresponding thereto and a mismatched portion of the defective image and the reference image are digitalized as a defect signal intensity and accumulated in association with the inspection condition, and the inspection conditions are changed to repeat evaluations while repeating accumulating works until the evaluation of all the inspection conditions in a set range is completed. After all the evaluations are completed, if there are a plurality of defects to be inspected, the work is repeated by times corresponding to the number of kinds of the defects and a recipe file including the accumulated conditions having the high defect signal intensity and an inspection condition item distribution as a inspection condition recipe is automatically outputted and is provided to the person who sets the inspection condition. And, appearance inspection for detecting a pattern defect or a foreign material defect on a substrate is performed.

Claims

1. A defect inspection system comprising:

first accumulating means for accumulating an inspection image including a defect and a reference image corresponding thereto in association with an inspection condition;

second accumulating means for digitalizing, as a defect signal intensity, an absolute value of a pixel having a maximum absolute value among respective pixels of a difference image between the inspection image and the reference image to accumulate the defect signal intensity in association with the inspection condition;

control means for changing the inspection condition to repeatedly execute accumulation performed by the first accumulating means and accumulation performed by the second accumulating means for evaluations until evaluations of all inspection conditions in a set range are completed;

recipe file producing means for using information accumulated in the first accumulating means and the second accumulating means to automatically output a recipe file including the inspection condition having a highest defect signal intensity as an inspection condition recipe; and

defect detecting means for using the reference image and the inspection image obtained by imaging areas corresponding to two patterns on a substrate to detect a pattern defect or a foreign material defect based on the recipe file produced by the recipe file producing means,

wherein the inspection image accumulated in the first accumulating means and the reference image are images obtained by producing a simulation model based on a structural drawing of a substrate to be inspected and calculating a case where a defect is present and a case where no defect is present according to the simulation model.

2. The defect inspection system according to claim 1, wherein, when a plurality of defects to be inspected are present, the control means executes the accumulation performed by the first accumulating means and the accumulation performed by the second accumulating means repeatedly by a number of kinds of the defects.

3. The defect inspection system according to claim 1, wherein, when the absolute value of the pixel having the maximum absolute value among respective pixels of the difference image is digitalized as the defect signal intensity in the second accumulating means, a difference image between the inspection image accumulated in the second accumulating means and the reference image is used.

4. The defect inspection system according to claim 1, wherein, when the absolute value of the pixel having the maximum absolute value among respective pixels of the difference image is digitalized as the defect signal intensity in the second accumulating means, an indicator for defect determination in an inspection apparatus having the second accumulating means is used.