Charged particle beam apparatus and processing method

• US 9,793,092 B2
• Filed: 01/21/2015
• Issued: 10/17/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 01/22/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi High-Tech Science Corporation (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Hitachi High-Tech Science Corporation (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Inventors: Muramatsu, Masashi, Kozakai, Tomokazu, Aramaki, Fumio
• Primary Examiner(s): Johnston, Phillip A
• Assistant Examiner(s): TSAI, HSIEN C
• Application Number:
  US14/601,446
• Publication Number:
  US 20150206708A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,000 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G21K 5/02 having no beam-forming means
• CPC Class Codes: H01J 2237/04 Means for controlling the discharge
• CPC Class Codes: H01J 2237/08 Ion sources
• CPC Class Codes: H01J 2237/15 Means for deflecting or directing discharge
• CPC Class Codes: H01J 2237/2806 Secondary charged particle
• CPC Class Codes: H01J 2237/317 Processing objects on a microscale
• CPC Class Codes: H01J 37/222 Image processing arrangements associated with the tube image data processing or generation, in general G06T
• CPC Class Codes: H01J 37/28 with scanning beams H01J37/268, H01J37/292, H01J37/2955 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H01J 37/304 Controlling tubes by information coming from the objects or from the beam, e.g. correction signals

Abstract

A charged particle beam apparatus has a charged particle beam column configured to irradiate a charged particle beam, and a controller configured to control the charged particle beam column to irradiate the charged particle beam at a first pixel interval for a first region and to irradiate the charged particle beam at a second pixel interval different from the first pixel interval for a second region included in the first region. The first and second regions include plural first and second pixels each including first and second sub-pixels which are irradiated by the charged particle beam to generate secondary electrons. First and second sub-pixel images are formed based on the detected secondary electrons, and the first and second sub-pixel images are synthesized to form first and second images.

Claims

1. A charged particle beam apparatus comprising:

a charged particle beam column configured to irradiate a charged particle beam to a first region and a second region of a sample, the second region included in the first region;

a controller configured to control the charged particle beam column to irradiate the charged particle beam to the first region and the second region of the sample, the first region including a plurality of first pixels at a first pixel interval, each of the first pixels including a first predetermined number of first sub-pixels, the second region including a plurality of second pixels at a second pixel interval different from the first pixel interval, each of the second pixels including a second predetermined number of second sub-pixels, wherein the controller is configured to control the charged particle beam column to irradiate the charged particle beam to each of the first sub-pixels at the first pixel interval for the first region and to irradiate the charged particle beam to each of the second sub-pixels at the second pixel interval for the second region;

a secondary electron detector configured to detect first secondary electrons for each of the first sub-pixels generated by irradiating the charged particle beam to each of the first sub-pixels at the first pixel interval for the first region, to generate a first signal of the first secondary electrons for each of the first sub-pixels, to detect second secondary electrons for each of the second sub-pixels generated by irradiating the charged particle beam to each of the second sub-pixels at the second pixel interval for the second region, and to generate a second signal of the second secondary electrons for each of the second sub-pixels; and

an image forming unit configured to form first sub-pixel images by using the first signal, the number of the first sub-pixel images being the first predetermined number, to generate a first image by synthesizing the predetermined number of the first sub-pixel images, and to form second sub-pixel images by using the second signal, the number of the second sub-pixel images being the second predetermined number, to generate a second image by synthesizing the predetermined number of the second sub-pixel images.

2. The charged particle beam apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the second region is a correction mark detection region that includes a position at which a correction mark is provided.

3. The charged particle beam apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the controller controls the charged particle beam column to perform an irradiation process of irradiating the charged particle beam once for each pixel region designated in a bitmap for multiple times while displacing an irradiation position of the charged particle beam within each pixel region for each of the irradiation process for each pixel.

4. The charged particle beam apparatus according to claim 3,

wherein the controller operates to:

control the charged particle beam column to perform scanning of a drift correction region with a first pixel pitch that is smaller than a second pixel pitch of the bitmap;

calculate a first amount of drift correction based on information obtained through the scanning; and

perform drift correction by converting the first amount of drift correction into a second amount of drift correction for the second pixel pitch of the bitmap.

5. The charged particle beam apparatus according to claim 3, wherein when a field of view of the bitmap is set to FOV_A and a field of view having an amount, by which the irradiation position is displaced, the same with a pixel size is set to FOV_B, the controller controls the charged particle beam column to perform the irradiation process for at least (FOV_A/FOV_B) by (FOV_A/FOV_B) times in total within the first region.

6. A processing method of a sample including a first region and a second region, the second region included in the first region, the method comprising:

controlling a charged particle beam column to irradiate a charged particle beam to the first region and the second region of the sample, the first region including a plurality of first pixels at a first pixel interval, each of the first pixels including a first predetermined number of first sub-pixels, the second region including a plurality of second pixels at a second pixel interval different from the first pixel interval, each of the second pixels including a second predetermined number of second sub-pixels;

irradiating the charged particle beam to each of the first sub-pixels at the first pixel interval for the first region by controlling the charged particle beam column;

irradiating the charged particle beam to each of the second sub-pixels at the second pixel interval by controlling the charged particle beam column;

detecting first secondary electrons for each of the first sub-pixels generated by irradiating the charged particle beam to each of the first sub-pixels at the first pixel interval for the first region;

generating a first signal of the first secondary electrons for each of the first sub-pixels by detecting first secondary electrons;

detecting second secondary electrons for each of the second sub-pixels generated by irradiating the charged particle beam to each of the second sub-pixels at the second pixel interval for the second region;

generating a second signal of the second secondary electrons for each of the second sub-pixels by detecting second secondary electrons;

forming first sub-pixel images by using the first signal, the number of the first sub-pixel images being the first predetermined number;

generating a first image by synthesizing the predetermined number of the first sub-pixel images;

forming second sub-pixel images by using the second signal, the number of the second sub-pixel images being the second predetermined number; and

generating a second image by synthesizing the predetermined number of the second sub-pixel images.