Title

Wafer Surface Reconstruction From Top-Down Scanning Electron Microscope Images

Keywords

Artificial neural networks; Critical dimension metrology; Image processing; Scanning electron microscopy; Semiconductor fabrication

Abstract

In this paper, we propose and investigate several solutions to a difficult "inverse problem" which arises in semiconductor fabrication. The problem is to deduce a feature's vertical cross-section from two-dimensional top-down scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of the feature surface. Our first approach is to directly map from SEM intensity waveform to line profile. We show that the direct inverse function approach to profile reconstruction is very sensitive to intensity changes and that it can therefore be used to detect variations in wafer surface patterns. The other two approaches are based on physical modeling of the interaction between the electron beam and the feature surface. Our results are illustrated with a variety of real data sets originating from industry. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Publication Date

8-1-2004

Publication Title

Microelectronic Engineering

Volume

75

Issue

2

Number of Pages

216-233

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mee.2004.05.006

Socpus ID

3142656045 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/3142656045

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