Abstract. Effective measurement of fabricated structures is critical to the cost-effective production of modern electronics. However, traditional tip-based approaches are poorly suited to in-line inspection at current manufacturing speeds. We present the development of a large area inspection method to address throughput constraints due to the narrow field-of-view (FOV) inherent in conventional tip-based measurement. The proposed proof-of-concept system can perform simultaneous, noncontact inspection at multiple hotspots using single-chip atomic force microscopes (sc-AFMs) with nanometer-scale resolution. The tool has a throughput of ∼60  wafers  /  h for five-site measurement on a 4-in. wafer, corresponding to a nanometrology throughput of ∼66,000  μm2  /  h. This methodology can be used to not only locate subwavelength “killer” defects but also to measure topography for in-line process control. Further, a postprocessing workflow is developed to stitch together adjacent scans measured in a serial fashion and expand the FOV of each individual sc-AFM such that total inspection area per cycle can be balanced with throughput to perform larger area inspection for uses such as defect root-cause analysis.

中文翻译：

---

电子器件纳米制造中基于尖端的晶圆检测的扩展区域计量

摘要。制造结构的有效测量对于现代电子产品的成本效益生产至关重要。然而，传统的基于尖端的方法不太适合以当前的制造速度进行在线检测。我们提出了一种大面积检测方法的开发，以解决由于传统基于尖端的测量中固有的窄视场 (FOV) 而导致的吞吐量限制。所提出的概念验证系统可以使用具有纳米级分辨率的单芯片原子力显微镜 (sc-AFM) 在多个热点进行同时、非接触式检查。对于 4 英寸的五点测量，该工具的吞吐量约为 60 片/小时。晶圆，对应于 ∼66,000 μm2 / h 的纳米计量吞吐量。这种方法不仅可用于定位亚波长“杀手”缺陷，还可用于测量在线过程控制的形貌。此外，开发了后处理工作流程，以将连续测量的相邻扫描拼接在一起，并扩大每个单独 sc-AFM 的 FOV，以便每个周期的总检测面积与吞吐量平衡，以执行更大面积的检测，用于缺陷根部等用途-原因分析。