A method for determining the distortion correction position of features in an image formed by a multibeam charged particle microscope, a corresponding computer program product, and a multibeam charged particle microscope.

JP7863623B2Active Publication Date: 2026-05-21カールツァイスマルティセムゲゼルシヤフトミットベシュレンクテルハフツングカールツァイスマルティセムゲゼルシヤフトミットベシュレンクテルハフツングカールツァイスマルティセムゲゼルシヤフトミットベシュレンクテルハフツング
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Patent Information

Authority / Receiving Office
JP · JP
Patent Type
Patents
Current Assignee / Owner
カールツァイスマルティセムゲゼルシヤフトミットベシュレンクテルハフツングカールツァイスマルティセムゲゼルシヤフトミットベシュレンクテルハフツングカールツァイスマルティセムゲゼルシヤフトミットベシュレンクテルハフツング
Filing Date
2023-01-20
Publication Date
2026-05-21

AI Technical Summary

Technical Problem

Conventional multibeam charged particle microscopes face challenges in accurately correcting higher-order distortions induced by scanning, which affect the precision of feature measurement in semiconductor structures, particularly in determining critical dimensions and overlay accuracy with nanometer-level precision.

Method used

An algorithmic method for distortion correction during image post-processing and hardware-based correction during image pre-processing are employed to address scan-induced distortions, utilizing vector distortion maps and spatial variation filters to correct geometric characteristics of features in the image.

Benefits of technology

The method achieves high-precision measurement of semiconductor features with accuracy below 1 nm, reducing computational load and resource requirements while maintaining high throughput.

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Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for detecting a charged particle beamlet having a plurality of J primary charged particle beamlets (3) over a plurality of J image subfields (31.mn), a detection unit (200) including a detector for detecting a plurality of J secondary electron beamlets (9) each corresponding to one of the J image subfields (31.mn), a scan control unit (930) connected to the first raster scanner (110) and configured, in use, to control the raster scanning operation of the plurality of J primary charged particle beamlets (3) by the first raster scanner (110), a kernel generation unit (812) configured, in use, to generate a spatially varying filter kernel (910) for correcting spatially varying distortion of the image subfields (31.mn), and an image processing unit (812) synchronized in operation with the detector, the scan control unit (930) and the kernel generation unit. A multi-beam charged particle microscope (1) comprising: an image data acquisition unit (110); and a controller (800, 820) comprising: a data acquisition unit (810); for each of the J image subfields, an analog-to-digital converter (811) for converting, in use, an analog data stream received from the detector into a digital data stream representing the image subfield (31.mn); a hardware filter unit (813) configured to receive the digital data stream and configured, in use, to generate a distortion-corrected data stream by performing a convolution with a spatially varying filter kernel (910) of a segment (32) of the image subfield (31.mn); and an image memory (814) configured to store the distortion-corrected data stream as a 2D representation of the image subfield (31.mn).
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