Patent application number | Description | Published |
20110196639 | COMPUTER-IMPLEMENTED METHODS, COMPUTER-READABLE MEDIA, AND SYSTEMS FOR DETERMINING ONE OR MORE CHARACTERISTICS OF A WAFER - Computer-implemented methods, computer-readable media, and systems for determining one or more characteristics of a wafer are provided. | 08-11-2011 |
20110218762 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR WAFER EDGE FEATURE DETECTION AND QUANTIFICATION - Disclosed herein is a method to enhance detection and quantification of features in the wafer edge/wafer roll off regions. Modifications and improvements have been made to earlier methods which enable improved accuracy and increased scope of feature detection. | 09-08-2011 |
20120177282 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR IMPROVED LOCALIZED FEATURE QUANTIFICATION IN SURFACE METROLOGY TOOLS - A method for enabling more accurate measurements of localized features on wafers is disclosed. The method includes:
| 07-12-2012 |
20120179419 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS OF OBJECT BASED METROLOGY FOR ADVANCED WAFER SURFACE NANOTOPOGRAPHY - Disclosed herein is a system and method for enhanced and expanded localized geometry characterization. Objects of interest are classified according to user-defined parameters, and this enables enhanced contrast and more accurate feature detection, as well as more accurately defined feature object regions. | 07-12-2012 |
20130236085 | Systems and Methods of Advanced Site-Based Nanotopography for Wafer Surface Metrology - Systems and methods for providing micro defect inspection capabilities for optical systems are disclosed. Each given wafer image is filtered, treated and normalized prior to performing surface feature detection and quantification. A partitioning scheme is utilized to partition the wafer image into a plurality of measurement sites and metric values are calculated for each of the plurality of measurement sites. Furthermore, transformation steps may also be utilized to extract additional process relevant metric values for analysis purposes. | 09-12-2013 |
20130304399 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR WAFER SURFACE FEATURE DETECTION, CLASSIFICATION AND QUANTIFICATION WITH WAFER GEOMETRY METROLOGY TOOLS - Systems and methods for providing micro defect inspection capabilities for optical systems such as wafer metrology tools and interferometer systems are disclosed. The systems and methods in accordance with the present disclosure may detect, classify and quantify wafer surface features, wherein the detected defects are classified and the important defect metrology information of height/depth, area and volume is reported. The systems and methods in accordance with the present disclosure therefore provide more values for quantifying the negative effect of these defects on the wafer quality. | 11-14-2013 |
20140107998 | System and Method to Emulate Finite Element Model Based Prediction of In-Plane Distortions Due to Semiconductor Wafer Chucking - Systems and methods for prediction of in-plane distortions (IPD) due to wafer shape in semiconductor wafer chucking process is disclosed. A process to emulate the non-linear finite element (FE) contact mechanics model based IPD prediction is utilized in accordance with one embodiment of the present disclosure. The emulated FE model based prediction process is substantially more efficient and provides accuracy comparable to the FE model based IPD prediction that utilizes full-scale 3-D wafer and chuck geometry information and requires computation intensive simulations. Furthermore, an enhanced HOS IPD/OPD prediction process based on a series of Zernike basis wafer shape images is also disclosed. | 04-17-2014 |
20140114597 | Systems, Methods and Metrics for Wafer High Order Shape Characterization and Wafer Classification Using Wafer Dimensional Geometry Tool - Systems and methods for improving results of wafer higher order shape (HOS) characterization and wafer classification are disclosed. The systems and methods in accordance with the present disclosure are based on localized shapes. A wafer map is partitioned into a plurality of measurement sites to improve the completeness of wafer shape representation. Various site based HOS metric values may be calculated for wafer characterization and/or classification purposes, and may also be utilized as control input for a downstream application. In addition, polar grid partitioning schemes are provided. Such polar grid partitioning schemes may be utilized to partition a wafer surface into measurement sites having uniform site areas while providing good wafer edge region coverage. | 04-24-2014 |