Today’s CD-SEM metrology is challenged when it comes to measuring complex features found in patterning hotspots (like tip to tip, tip to side, necking and bridging). Metrology analysis tools allow us to extract SEM contours of a feature and convert them into a GDS format from which dimensional data can be extracted. While the CD-SEM is being used to take images, the actual measurement and the choice of what needs to be measured is done offline. Most of the time this method is used for OPC model creation but barely for process variability analysis at nominal process conditions. We showed in a previous paper [1] that it is possible to study lithography to etch transfer behavior of a hotspot using SEM contours. The goal of the current paper is to go extend this methodology to quantify process variability of 2D features using a new tooling to measure contour data.

Date Published: 28 March 2017
PDF: 14 pages
Proc. SPIE 10145, Metrology, Inspection, and Process Control for Microlithography XXXI, 1014514 (28 March 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2257876

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10145:
Metrology, Inspection, and Process Control for Microlithography XXXI
Martha I. Sanchez, Editor(s)