Mr. Mirko Beyer Profile

Mirko Beyer

at Applied Materials

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Publications (2)

Proceedings Article | 20 April 2011 Paper

Enhanced defect of interest [DOI] monitoring by utilizing sensitive inspection and ADRTrue SEM review

Remo Kirsch, Ulrich Zeiske, Saar Shabtay, Mirko Beyer, Liran Yerushalmi, Oren Goshen

Proceedings Volume 7971, 79712M (2011) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.881479

KEYWORDS: Inspection, Scanning electron microscopy, Process control, Semiconducting wafers, Optical inspection, Defect detection, Image classification, Semiconductors, Optical filters, Image filtering

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As semiconductor process design rules continue to shrink, the ability of optical inspection tools to separate between true defects and nuisance becomes more and more difficult. Therefore, monitoring Defect of Interest (DOI) become a real challenge (Figure 1). This phenomenon occurs due to the lower signal received from real defects while noise levels remain almost the same, resulting in inspection high nuisance rate, which jeopardizes the ability to provide a meaningful, true defect Pareto. A non-representative defect Pareto creates a real challenge to a reliable process monitoring (Figure 4). Traditionally, inspection tool recipes were optimized to keep data load at a manageable level and provide defect maps with ~10% nuisance rate, but as defects of interest get smaller with design rule shrinkage, this requirement results in a painful compromise in detection sensitivity. The inspection is usually followed by defect review and classification using scanning electron microscope (SEM), the classification done manually and it is performed on a small sample of the inspection defect map due to time and manual resources limitations. Sample is usually 50~60 randomly selected locations, review is performed manually most of the times, and manual classification is performed for all the reviewed locations. In the approach described in this paper, the inspection tool recipe is optimized for sensitivity rather than low nuisance rate (i.e. detect all DOI with compromising on a higher nuisance rate). Inspection results with high nuisance rate introduce new challenges for SEM review methodology & tools. This paper describe a new approach which enhances process monitoring quality and the results of collaborative work of the Process Diagnostic & Control Business Unit of Applied Materials® and GLOBALFOUNDRIES® utilizing Applied Materials ADRTrueTM & SEMVisionTM capabilities. The study shows that the new approach reveals new defect types in the Pareto, and improves the ability to monitor the process and identify excursion for low magnitude defect of interest.

Proceedings Article | 3 April 2008 Paper

Production aspects of 45nm immersion lithography defect monitoring using laser DUV inspection methodology

Remo Kirsch, Antje Martin, Uzodinma Okoroanyanwu, Wolfram Grundke, Ute Vogler, Mirko Beyer, Eran Valfer, Susan Weiher-Tellford, Renana Perlovitch, Nurit Racah, Peter Vanoppen, Richard Moerman

Proceedings Volume 6922, 692204 (2008) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.777371

KEYWORDS: Inspection, Semiconducting wafers, Particles, Deep ultraviolet, Immersion lithography, Contamination, Lithography, Wafer inspection, Optical spheres, Defect inspection

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Immersion lithography addresses the limits of optical lithography by providing higher NA's (NA > 1), which enable imaging of smaller features and hence it enables production of 45nm logic devices. One of the key challenges of this advanced technology, however, is controlling the defectivity level produced specifically by the Lithography immersion stepper and track systems. To control and monitor the immersion processes in production, consideration has been given to identifying an alternative to the traditional sensitivity approaches, using Darkfield (DF) and Brightfield (BF) wafer inspection methodologies. This unique method should provide for stable, reliable and sensitive inspection results which are capable of supporting a technology node introduction (product ramp) as well as monitoring the base line performance (in other words, capture excursions). The following study was done to explore laser DUV Brightfield inspection, utilizing the Applied Materials UVision^TM, which has the ability to detect defects as small as 20-40nm size. Additionally a joint project between AMD, ASML and AMAT developed an appropriate inspection strategy that combines, lithographic defect printing simulations and sensitive inspection routines to identify defect problems effectively, drive defect reduction efforts and result in stable production monitoring. We investigated the use of traditional Photo Test Monitor (PTM) as a valid technique to monitor the introduction of the immersion lithography at 45nm. In addition, we explored the correlation between these PTM wafers and the actual production wafers for new types of defects. It was found that the amount of small protrusion defects (~20-40nm size) increased on immersion PTM wafers compared to dry processed PTM wafers. Based on process experiments at AMD and immersion defect simulations provided by ASML we were able to isolate immersion specific defect problems from general lithography related defects also seen in Dry lithography. The results show that unique combination of high sensitivity defect inspection methods and simulation efforts can very effectively drive defect reduction efforts and accelerate yield on advanced technology like immersion lithography. Additionally, it is also possible to provide a production monitoring of 45nm immersion processes with such extreme sensitive inspection of PTM wafers of defects down to 20nm.

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