Care Area Compaction for Semiconductor Defect Map Filtering
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current semiconductor inspection processes face challenges in efficiently detecting defects on semiconductor specimens due to the high volume of care areas exceeding inspection capacity, leading to increased false alarms and noise, which can overload processing capacity and reduce yield.
Innovation Solution
A computerized system using a processing and memory circuitry to compact care areas into a set of compacted rectangles through an R-tree structure, minimizing non-care area inclusion while meeting inspection capacity, thereby optimizing defect detection and reducing false alarms.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If all care areas are inspected individually, then defect detection sensitivity is improved, but inspection capacity is exceeded and processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple care areas into a single compacted care area that encloses all individual care areas. This consolidation reduces the number of inspection regions from many individual care areas to one unified compacted area, thereby improving inspection capacity and processing efficiency while maintaining defect detection sensitivity across all original care areas.
2Measurement precision
If all care areas are inspected individually, then defect detection sensitivity is improved, but false alarms and noise increase
Solution Approach 1:
By merging multiple care areas into one compacted care area, the patent reduces the total number of inspection regions, which directly decreases the number of false alarms and noise generated during inspection while preserving the ability to detect defects in all original care areas.
3Productivity
If care areas are compacted, then inspection capacity is improved and false alarms reduced, but non-care area inclusion increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary actions by receiving design data and determining the optimal compacted care area configuration before inspection begins. This advance planning allows the system to minimize non-care area inclusion while ensuring all original care areas are covered, balancing inspection capacity improvement with reduced unnecessary inspection areas.
Data Source
AI summary
There is provided a system and method of assisting defect detection on a semiconductor specimen. The method includes obtaining a first map informative of multiple care areas (CAs) to be inspected on a die; creating a plurality of bounding rectangles (BRs) enclosing the multiple CAs; and compacting the plurality of BRs to a set of compacted rectangles to meet a predefined inspection capacity while attempting to minimize a non-CA area enclosed by the set of compacted rectangles, giving rise to a second map informative of the set of compacted rectangles. The compaction comprises constructing an R-tree structure representative of the plurality of BRs and compacted rectangles, and selecting a set of nodes from the R-tree structure based on the predefined inspection capacity and representative of the set of compacted rectangles. The second map is usable for filtering a defect map indicative of defect candidate distribution on the die.