Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080246966 | Surface-Inspecting Apparatus and Surface-Inspecting Method - Defect inspection of repeated pattern on a surface is executed by reducing influence of a base layer. Thus, surface-inspecting apparatus and method include unit irradiating repeated pattern on specimen's surface with illuminating light, units setting an angle formed by direction on an incidence plane's surface including irradiating direction of illuminating light and a normal to the surface and repeated direction of repeated pattern to predetermined value except zero, a light detecting unit detecting regular reflected light from repeated pattern when illuminating light is irradiated and outputs information about light intensity of regular reflected light, and a detecting unit detecting the repeated pattern's defect on information, from light detecting unit. Additionally, an angle formed by the direction on incidence plane's surface and repeated direction, an angle formed by irradiating direction of illuminating light and normal to surface, a wavelength of illuminating light, and a pitch of repeated pattern satisfy conditional expression. | 10-09-2008 |
20090059231 | Surface inspection apparatus - A surface inspection apparatus includes units illuminating repetitive patterns formed on a surface of a suspected substance and measuring a variation in an intensity of regular reflection light caused by a change in shapes of the repetitive patterns, units illuminating the repetitive patterns with linearly polarized light, setting an angle formed between a repetitive direction of the repetitive patterns and a direction of a plane of vibration of the linearly polarized light at a tilt angle, and measuring a variation in a polarized state of the regular reflection light caused by the change in the shapes of the repetitive patterns, and a unit detecting a defect of the repetitive patterns based on the variation in the intensity and the variation in the polarized state of the regular reflection light. | 03-05-2009 |
20090103080 | Surface inspecting apparatus - A surface inspecting apparatus is provided with an illuminating means for illuminating a repeated pattern formed on the surface of an object to be inspected by linear polarization; a setting means for setting an angle formed by a direction on the surface of an incidence plane of the linear polarization and a repeating direction of the repeated pattern at a prescribed value other than 0; an extracting means for extracting polarization components vertical to an oscillation surface of the linear polarization, from light generated in a specular direction from the repeated pattern; a light receiving means for receiving the light extracted by the extracting means, and outputting light intensity of the specular reflection light; and a detecting means for detecting defects of the repeated pattern, based on the light intensity of the specular reflection light outputted from the light receiving means. The setting means sets the angle formed by the direction on the surface of the incidence plane of the linear polarization and the repeating direction of the repeated pattern so that a difference between the intensity of light from a normal portion on the surface and the light intensity of light from a defective portion on the surface is at maximum. | 04-23-2009 |
20090315988 | OBSERVATION DEVICE, INSPECTION DEVICE AND INSPECTION METHOD - An inspection device is configured having: an illumination unit that illuminates a wafer with illumination light having a plurality of kinds of wavelengths; a photographing unit that photographs the image of the wafer illuminated with the illumination light; and an image processing unit that generates an inspection image of the wafer photographed by the photographing unit, by performing a predetermined weighting for each of the plurality of kinds of wavelengths, and judges whether any defect is present in the wafer based on the generated inspection image. | 12-24-2009 |
20100182593 | Surface state detecting apparatus - A surface inspection apparatus includes units illuminating repetitive patterns formed on a surface of a suspected substance and measuring a variation in an intensity of regular reflection light caused by a change in shapes of the repetitive patterns, units illuminating the repetitive patterns with linearly polarized light, setting an angle formed between a repetitive direction of the repetitive patterns and a direction of a plane of vibration of the linearly polarized light at a tilt angle, and measuring a variation in a polarized state of the regular reflection light caused by the change in the shapes of the repetitive patterns, and a unit detecting a defect of the repetitive patterns based on the variation in the intensity and the variation in the polarized state of the regular reflection light. | 07-22-2010 |
20100321677 | SURFACE INSPECTING APPARATUS AND SURFACE INSPECTING METHOD - There is provided a surface inspecting apparatus capable of performing inspection at higher speed and with higher accuracy. A surface inspecting apparatus ( | 12-23-2010 |
20110235038 | Evaluation device and evaluation method - In an evaluation device ( | 09-29-2011 |
20110254946 | Surface inspection device - A surface inspection device ( | 10-20-2011 |
20120069335 | SURFACE INSPECTING APPARATUS AND SURFACE INSPECTING METHOD - A surface inspecting apparatus includes an illumination optical system irradiating linearly polarized light to a wafer surface under a plurality of inspection conditions; an imaging optical system capturing an image of the wafer formed by polarization components having an oscillation direction different from that of the linearly polarized light as part of reflected light from the wafer surface irradiated by the linearly polarized light under the plurality of inspection conditions; and an image-processing apparatus for extracting for individual pixels an image having the smallest signal intensity from among images of the wafer captured under the plurality of inspection conditions by the imaging optical system, and for inspecting for the presence of defects in a repeated pattern of the wafer based on an inspection image of the wafer generated by connecting each of the extracted pixels. | 03-22-2012 |
20120156810 | INSPECTION METHOD, INSPECTION APPARATUS, EXPOSURE CONTROL METHOD, EXPOSURE SYSTEM, AND SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICE - There is provided an inspection method for inspecting a substrate supporting portion configured to support a substrate during an exposure performed by an exposure apparatus, the method including: irradiating a surface of the exposed substrate with an illumination light beam; detecting reflected light from a pattern in the irradiated surface; determining a focusing state at the time of exposing the pattern of the substrate based on the detected reflected light; and inspecting a state of the substrate supporting portion based on the focusing state. | 06-21-2012 |
20120164763 | SURFACE INSPECTION APPARATUS, METHOD FOR INSPECTING SURFACE, EXPOSURE SYSTEM, AND METHOD FOR PRODUCING SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICE - A surface inspection apparatus includes: an irradiation unit; a detection unit configured to detect a first detection signal according to a first light beam and a second detection signal according to a second light beam; a providing unit which is configured to provide a first reference data and a second reference data; and a determination unit which is configured to determine a processing condition of the pattern in the substrate as an inspection object substrate, based on consistency between the first detection signal and the first reference data, and consistency between the second detection signal and the second reference data. | 06-28-2012 |
20130070244 | EVALUATION DEVICE AND EVALUATION METHOD - In an evaluation device, an analyzer is rotated so that the azimuth of the transmission axis of the analyzer has an inclination angle of 90 degreesĀ±3 degrees with respect to the transmission axis of a polarizer. An imaging camera captures a regularly reflected image of a wafer under each condition, and an image processing unit evaluates the shape of a repeating pattern and detects dose defects and focus defects on the basis of the two images of the wafer captured by the imaging camera. | 03-21-2013 |
20130114081 | INSPECTION APPARATUS AND INSPECTION METHOD - There is provided an inspection apparatus, including: an illumination section configured to irradiate a pattern, a detection section configured to detect a reflected light from the pattern, and a calculation section configured to compare a first change and a second change to calculate a deviation between the first and second changes. The first change which is a change, of a detection result of a pattern formed by a plurality of first exposure conditions, with respect to the first exposure conditions. The second change which is a change, of a detection result of a reflected light, from a pattern, generated by irradiating the pattern with the illumination light. The pattern is formed by a plurality of second exposure conditions each having a predetermined interval in a range which has at least one part overlapping with a range of the first exposure conditions, with respect to the second exposure conditions. | 05-09-2013 |
20130217154 | INSPECTION APPARATUS, INSPECTION METHOD, EXPOSURE METHOD, AND METHOD FOR MANUFACTURING SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICE - A surface inspection apparatus ( | 08-22-2013 |
20150049314 | INSPECTION METHOD, INSPECTION APPARATUS, EXPOSURE CONTROL METHOD, EXPOSURE SYSTEM, AND SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICE - There is provided an inspection apparatus which inspects a substrate supporting portion configured to support a substrate during an exposure performed by an exposure apparatus. The apparatus includes: a irradiation unit configured to irradiate, with an illumination light beam, a surface of the substrate on which a pattern has been formed by an exposure by the exposure device; a detecting unit configured to detect reflected light from a pattern in the irradiated surface; a focusing state computation unit connected to the detection unit and configured to determine a focusing state of the pattern of the substrate, based on a detection result of the reflected light beam detected by the detection unit; and an inspection unit connected to the focusing state computation unit and configured to inspect the substrate supporting portion based on the focusing state determined by the focusing state computation unit. | 02-19-2015 |