A method and equipment which includes an illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table for storing an illumination distribution within an illustrated spot and which calculates a coordinate position for a particle or a defect and the diameter of the particle on the basis of detection light intensity data about the particle or defect and the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table. Thus, even when the illumination distribution within the illustrated spot based on an actual illumination optical system is not a Gaussian distribution, the calculation of the particle diameter of the detected particle or defect and the calculation of a coordinate position on the surface of an object to be inspected can be attained with an increased accuracy.
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0. 11. A method for detecting an anomaly of an object, the method comprising steps of:
illuminating light on said object to form an illumination area on said object;
detecting light from said illumination area; and
using a processing unit to:
acquire digital data expressed by a (r, θ) coordinate system by using a result of the detecting light from said illumination area,
acquire digital data expressed by a two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system by using an image of said illumination area, and said digital data expressed by the (r, θ) coordinate system by a processing unit, and
acquire the anomaly's size by using digital data of said anomaly and said image.
0. 24. An inspection apparatus which detects an anomaly of an object comprising;
an illuminating unit which supplies light and forms an illumination area on said object;
a detection unit which detects light from said illumination area; and
a processing unit, wherein said processing unit:
acquires digital data expressed by a (r, θ) coordinate system by using a detection result of said detection unit,
acquires digital data expressed by a two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system by using an image of said illumination area, and said digital data expressed by the (r, θ) coordinate system, and
acquires the anomaly's size by using digital data of said anomaly and said image.
0. 1. An inspection apparatus which detects an anomaly of a substrate comprising;
an illuminating unit which supplies light and forms an illumination spot on said substrate;
a detection unit which detects light from said illumination spot; and
a processing unit, wherein said processing unit:
acquires digital data expressed by (r, θ) coordinate system by using detection result of said detection unit, and
acquires digital data expressed by two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system by using a relative illumination distribution of said illumination spot, and said digital data expressed by (r, θ) coordinate system.
0. 2. An inspection apparatus according
said relative illumination distribution is expressed by two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system.
0. 3. An inspection apparatus according
wherein said processing unit acquires position of said anomaly on said two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system.
0. 4. An inspection apparatus according
a changing unit which changes an optical condition of said illumination unit;
a memory which stores a plurality of relative illumination distributions corresponding to a plurality of optical conditions; and
a selecting unit which selects a relative illumination distribution corresponding to said optical condition changed by said changing unit from said relative illumination distributions.
0. 5. An inspection apparatus according to
0. 6. A method for detecting an anomaly of a substrate, the method comprising steps of:
illuminating light on said substrate to form an illumination spot on said substrate;
detecting light from said illumination spot;
acquiring digital data expressed by (r, θ) coordinate system by using said detection result, and
acquiring digital data expressed by two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system by using a relative illumination distribution of said illumination spot, and said digital data expressed by (r, θ) coordinate system by a processing unit.
0. 7. A method according to
0. 8. A method according to
acquiring position of said anomaly on said two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system.
0. 9. A method according to
changing an optical condition of said illumination of light;
storing a plurality of relative illumination distributions corresponding to a plurality of optical conditions; and
selecting a relative illumination distribution corresponding to said changed optical condition from said relative illumination distributions.
0. 10. A method according to
correcting a tilt of said anomaly.
0. 12. The inspection apparatus according claim 26, further comprising:
a changing unit which changes an optical condition of said illumination unit;
a memory which stores a plurality of relative illumination distributions corresponding to a plurality of optical conditions; and
a selecting unit which selects a relative illumination distribution corresponding to said optical condition changed by said changing unit from said relative illumination distributions.
0. 13. The inspection apparatus according to claim 26, wherein said illumination distribution is two-dimensional matrix data.
0. 14. The inspection apparatus according to claim 26, wherein said relative illumination distribution is expressed by a two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system.
0. 15. The method according to claim 11, further comprising:
acquiring the image by using an imaging unit.
0. 16. The method according to claim 11, further comprising:
acquiring an illumination distribution from said image using said processing unit.
0. 17. The method according claim 16, further comprising:
changing an optical condition of said illumination unit using a changing unit;
storing a plurality of relative illumination distributions corresponding to a plurality of optical conditions in a memory; and
selecting a relative illumination distribution corresponding to said optical condition changed by said changing unit from said relative illumination distributions using a selecting unit.
0. 18. The method according to claim 16, wherein said relative illumination distribution is two-dimensional matrix data.
0. 19. The method according to claim 16, wherein said illumination distribution is expressed by a two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system.
0. 20. The method according to claim 16, wherein said processing unit acquires a position of said anomaly on said two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system.
0. 21. The method according to claim 16, further comprising:
correcting a tilt of said anomaly.
0. 22. The method according to claim 16, further comprising:
comparing output from said detection unit with a predetermined threshold value to acquire digital data of said anomaly.
0. 23. The method according to claim 16, wherein said two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system is defined by a first axis which connects a rotation center of said substrate with a center of the illumination spot, and a second axis which substantially crosses said first axis at a right angle.
0. 25. The inspection apparatus according to claim 24, further comprising:
an imaging unit which acquires said image.
0. 26. The inspection apparatus according to claim 24, wherein said processing unit acquires an illumination distribution from said image.
0. 27. The inspection apparatus according to claim 24, wherein said processing unit acquires a position of said anomaly on said two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system.
0. 28. The inspection apparatus according to claim 24, wherein digital data of said anomaly is acquired by comparing output from said detection unit with a predetermined threshold value.
0. 29. The inspection apparatus according to claim 24, wherein said two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system is defined by a first axis which connects a rotation center of said substrate with a center of the illumination spot, and a second axis which substantially crosses said first axis at a right angle.
0. 30. An inspection apparatus according to claim 24, wherein said processing unit corrects a tilt of said anomaly.
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yi,j=ri,j×sin θi,j−r−k,−1×sin θ−k,−1
In the inspection object moving stage for providing rotational motion as its main scan and translational motion as its sub-scan, the main scan locus 6 forms part of a circle arc and the curvature of the arc in the inner periphery on the inspection object is smaller than the curvature of the arc in the outer periphery, that is, the arc in the inner periphery is sharp. Thus, when comparison between scattered light data and the illumination distribution of an illustrated spot is made in a coordinate system (main scan, sub-scan) as in the prior art, no consideration of the influences of the aforementioned curvature causes a coordinate detection accuracy to be adversely affected. However, when data on the scattered light is converted to data in the Cartesian coordinate system and then treated as in the above case, a constant coordinate detection accuracy can be advantageously obtained through unique calculation even at a given position on the inspection object (, which corresponds to a case when the system determines ‘Yes’ in the step 403 and goes to a step 404 in
(Processing 5): When data about a relative illumination distribution in the illustrated spot 3 stored in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table 200 is parallelly moved in the two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system (x,y), the system calculates and evaluate whether the data optimally matches two-dimensional array data of the digital data Di,j at the coordinate value (xi,j,yi,j) in the two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system (x,y), and finds a parallel movement Δx in the x axis direction and a parallel movement Δy in the y axis direction in the optimum state. The above evaluation and calculation are carried out in the following steps (corresponding to a case when the system goes to steps 405 to 410 in
(Step 1): The system finds relative illumination distribution data Ii,j in the illustrated spot 3 corresponding to a position obtained by shifting a position of the data Di,j by α in the x axis direction and by β in the y axis direction by interpolation from the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table 200. At this time, it is preferable from the viewpoint of securing an accuracy upon the interpolation that a data spacing Δη (1 micrometer in the present embodiment) in they axis direction of the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table 200 is a data spacing in a j direction of Di,j, that is, Δr be divisible by Δη. It is desirable that the resolution of the illustrated spot observation camera 107 be nearly 5 micrometers or smaller when converted on the surface of the semiconductor wafer 100. However, when the resolution is lower than nearly 5 micrometers, it is preferable to previously interpolate an image obtained from the illustrated spot observation camera 107 to increase the pixel resolution and then to store it in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table 200.
(Step 2): From an equation of Di,j=p×Ii,j+q, the system finds p, q which are best suitable for Di,j and Ii,j by the least squares method.
(Step 3): The system finds an error sum of squares in the state of a result of the (Step 2), that is, a sum ε of all combinations of i and j of squares of (Di,j−Ii,j).
(Step 4): The system calculates (Step 1) to (Step 3) for changed values of α and β, and sets Δx and Δy for smallest ones of error sums ε of squares of the values α and β.
(Processing 6): The inspection coordinate value (r−k,−1, θ−k,−1) for D−k,−1 can be converted to a position coordinate value X−k,−1, Y−k,−1 in the two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system (X,Y) having a Y axis corresponding to a direction of a linear symmetric axis on the surface of the inspection object, having an X axis perpendicular to the Y axis, and having an origin (0,0) corresponding to the rotational center of the rotary stage 103, by converting it according to equations which follow.
X−k,−1=r−k,−1×cos θ−k,−1
Y−k,−1=r−k,−1×sin θ−k,−1
The system calculates a particle/defect coordinate calculation result 9 at accurate coordinate positions X, Y of the detected particle or defect, by adding Δx, Δy obtained in the (Processing 5) to the converted result of the (Processing 6), that is, by finding X=X−k,−1+Δx and Y=Y−k,−1+Δy (, which corresponds to a step 411 in
In the present embodiment, the origin of an eventually found defect coordinate (X,Y) is set at the rotational center of the rotary stage 103, that is, at the center of the semiconductor wafer 100. However, when the origin is set at another position, it is only required to shift the calculation by the corresponding amount parallelly. When there is a shift between the rotational center of the rotary stage 103 and the center of the semiconductor wafer 100 and it is desired to correct the shift, it is similarly only required to shift the calculation by the corresponding amounts corresponding to components of the center shift in the x and y axis direction parallelly. When it is desired to correct an error when the semiconductor wafer 100 is mounted on the rotary stage 103 with a tilt Δξ to the origin of a rotational angle of the rotary stage 103, it is only required to correct θ−k,−1 in the equations in the above (Processing 6) by the corresponding amount.
When the accurate coordinate position (X,Y) of the detected particle or defect in the (Processing 6) is found, a particle diameter calculating mechanism 120 next corrects maximum digital data D−k,−1 n actual measured values for the particle or defect according to an equation which follows, with use of a value I−k,−1|0,0 of I−k,−1 when α and β are set at zero in the above (Processing 5) and a value of I−k,−1|α,β of I−k,−1 for α and β when the error sum of squares become minimum, and calculates the size of the detected particle or defect.
D−k,−1′=(I−k,−1|α,β/I−k,−1|0,0)×D−k,−1
Unlike the size of the particle/defect directly found using maximum digital data D−k,−1 in actually measured values thereof, since the calculated result is calculated using the value of an illuminance seemingly closest to the illuminance of the particle/defect passage position on the basis of the relative position of the particle/defect passed through the illustrated spot 3, the result can be obtained with a higher accuracy.
In the present embodiment, the particle/defect determining mechanism 108 determines the presence of a particle or defect by comparing digital data obtained from the A/D converter 30 with a predetermined threshold. However, in place of directly obtaining digital data from the A/D converter 30, digital data stored in the digital data table 210 may be read out and used for the above determination. Or in place of it, the particle/defect determining mechanism may determine the presence of the particle or defect by comparing an output electric signal from the amplifier 26 with a predetermined threshold voltage.
In the present embodiment, all the digital data acquired for 3 turns of the inspection object moving stage 102 are arranged to be stored in the digital data table 210. However, as will be easily understood from the (Processing 1) to the (Processing 6), any digital data table is employed so long as the table can store all the digital data acquired for at least 2 turns of the inspection object moving stage 102 and can store data about (2k+1) or more points.
The values of digital data for use of the particle/defect determining mechanism 108 not larger than a predetermined detection threshold are meaningless when compared with relative illumination distribution data within the illustrated spot 3. Thus in place of such an arrangement as to hold all the digital data as in the above embodiment, only ones of digital data pieces determined by the particle/defect determining mechanism 108 not to be smaller than a predetermined detection threshold may be stored or saved in the digital data table 210. In this case, in the (Processing 1) to (Processing 6), Di,j not present in the digital data table 210 are not used for the comparative calculation and therefore removed therefrom. In addition to digital data determined by the particle/defect determining mechanism 108 not to be smaller than the predetermined detection threshold, when digital data before and after the determined digital data, that is, digital data earlier by at least one sampling interval or more and later at least by one sampling interval or more at times of the digital data determined by the particle/defect determining mechanism 108 to have exceeded the above threshold, and the inspection coordinate data corresponding to the digital data are arranged to be included in the table; even when the threshold is not set to be sufficiently small, such a situation that only excessively large or small digital data are stored in the table can be preferably avoided.
The optical system in the present embodiment incorporates the illustrated spot observation camera 107. However, when relative illumination distribution data within the illustrated spot 3 is acquired with use of a means different from the observation camera or when the relative illumination distribution data within the illustrated spot 3 is once acquired with use of the illustrated spot observation camera 107 and stored in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table 200 and thereafter it is unnecessary to use the illustrated spot observation camera 107, the optical system in the present embodiment may be arranged not to always include the illustrated spot observation camera 107. As a method of acquiring the relative illumination distribution data within the illustrated spot 3 with use of a means other than the illustrated spot observation camera 107, there is a method of measuring the relative illumination distribution within the illustrated spot with use of a semiconductor wafer having a standard particle deposited thereon.
By referring to
In this way, in the present embodiment of the present invention, even when the illumination distribution within the illustrated spot in the actual illumination optical system does not always follow the Gaussian function, a scattered light peak position closer to the true value of the detected particle or defect and a peak intensity can be calculated, which can lead to increase in the accuracy of particle diameter calculation of the particle or defect or in the accuracy of coordinate position detection on the surface of the inspection object.
When an illustrated spot illumination distribution actually measured in the inspection is used, accurate inspection can be achieved even when the illustrated spot illumination distribution is varied with a disturbance during the inspection. When an illustrated spot illumination distribution actually measured prior to the inspection is used, further, accurate inspection can be realized even when the illustrated spot illumination distribution is varied with a change with time after the inspection equipment is installed. In addition, after inspection is carried out with use of the illustrated spot illumination distribution in the previous inspection, it is also possible to correct an inspected result using the actually-measured illustrated spot illumination distribution. In this case, the inspection equipment can advantageously cope with the malfunction or failure of the device for measuring the illustrated spot illumination distribution before the inspected result or during the inspection.
Features of the present invention will be exemplified.
Feature 1: A particle/defect detecting method includes an inspection object moving stage nearly continuously moved in both main scan and sub-scan directions for providing a rotational motion in main scan and a translational motion in sub-scan; a light source; an illumination means for illuminating a surface of an object to be inspected with light from the light source as an illustrated spot of a predetermined size; a scattered/diffracted/reflected light detecting means for detecting light of the illuminated light scattered/diffracted/reflected at the illustrated spot and converting the detected light to an electric signal; an A/D converting means for converting the electric signal to digital data; an inspection coordinate detecting means for detecting a position on the surface of the object during inspection as inspection coordinate data at a time corresponding to the converted digital data; a particle/defect determining means for determining presence of a particle or a defect on the surface of the inspection object or in an interior of the inspection object close to its surface on the basis of the electric signal or the digital data; a particle diameter calculating means for calculating a size of the determined particle or defect on the basis of the digital data; and a particle/defect coordinate calculating means for calculating a position coordinate value of the particle or defect on the surface of the inspection object on the basis of information received from the inspection coordinate detecting unit, wherein the A/D converting means includes a digital data table for storing or saving a plurality of the digital data continuously obtained by continuously sampling the electric signal at intervals of a predetermined time on a main scan locus over a period of time corresponding at least 2 turns of the inspection object moving stage, the A/D converting means also includes an illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table for storing or saving a relative illumination distribution of the illuminated light within the illustrated spot on the surface of the inspection object in a two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system having a y axis corresponding to a direction of a straight line connected from a rotational center of the inspection object moving stage to a center of the illustrated spot and having an x axis perpendicular to the y axis as two-dimensional matrix data having data divisions divided at intervals of a first spacing in an x axis direction and at intervals of a second spacing in a y axis direction, and the particle/defect coordinate calculating means calculates position coordinate values X, Y of the determined particle or defect using a result of comparison between the digital data table and the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table in a two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system (X,Y) having a Y axis corresponding to a direction of a linear symmetric axis on the surface of the inspection object and having an X axis perpendicular to the Y axis. The above expression “a plurality of said digital data continuously obtained by continuously sampling said electric signal on a main scan locus over a period of time corresponding at least 2 turns of the inspection object moving stage” means to use data about a plurality of turns of r in the (r,θ) coordinate system, for example, in order to identify a particle coordinate in a (x,y) two-dimensional plane. Further, the digital data table as an example of the memory for storing the data may have such a capacity as to be capable of storing all data occurred during that. Or when the capacity of the memory is not so large as to store all the data, the memory may have such a capacity as to be capable of storing only necessary skipped data about the vicinity of the particle.
Feature 2: A particle/defect detecting method according to the above Feature 1, wherein the particle diameter calculating means calculates a size of the particle or defect using a result of comparison between the digital data table and the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table.
Feature 3: A particle/defect detecting method according to the above Feature 1 or 2, wherein the particle/defect determining means determines the presence of the particle or defect by comparing the electric signal with a threshold.
Feature 4: A particle/defect detecting method according to the above Feature 1 or 2, wherein the particle/defect determining means determines the presence of the particle or defect using digital data from the A/D converting means or using digital data stored in the digital data table.
Feature 5: A particle/defect detecting method including: an inspection object moving stage nearly continuously moved in both main scan and sub-scan directions for providing a rotational motion in main scan and a translational motion in sub-scan; a light source; an illumination means for illuminating a surface of an object to be inspected with light from the light source as an illustrated spot of a predetermined size; a scattered/diffracted/reflected light detecting means for detecting light of the illuminated light scattered/diffracted/reflected at the illustrated spot and converting the detected light to an electric signal; an A/D converting means for converting the electric signal to digital data; an inspection coordinate detecting means for detecting a position on the surface of the object during inspection as inspection coordinate data at a time corresponding to the converted digital data; a particle/defect determining means for determining presence of a particle or a defect on the surface of the inspection object or in an interior of the inspection object close to its surface on the basis of the electric signal or the digital data; a particle diameter calculating means for calculating a size of the determined particle or defect on the basis of the digital data; and a particle/defect coordinate calculating means for calculating a position coordinate value of the particle or defect on the surface of the inspection object on the basis of information received from the inspection coordinate detecting means, wherein the A/D converting means includes a digital data table for storing or saving partial data extracted based on information from the particle/defect determining means, from a plurality of the digital data continuously obtained by continuously sampling the electric signal at intervals of a predetermined time on a main scan locus over a period of time corresponding at least 2 turns of the inspection object moving stage, the A/D converting means also includes an illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table for storing or saving a relative illumination distribution of the illuminated light within the illustrated spot on the surface of the inspection object in a two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system having a y axis corresponding to a direction of a straight line connected from a rotational center of the inspection object moving stage to a center of the illustrated spot and having an x axis perpendicular to the y axis as two-dimensional matrix data having data divisions divided at intervals of a first spacing in an x axis direction and at intervals of a second spacing in a y axis direction, and the particle/defect coordinate calculating means calculates position coordinate values X, Y of the determined particle or defect using a result of comparison between the digital data table and the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table in a two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system (X,Y) having a Y axis corresponding to a direction of a linear symmetric axis on the surface of the inspection object and having an X axis perpendicular to the Y axis.
Feature 6: A particle/defect detecting method according to the above Feature 5, wherein the particle diameter calculating means calculates the size of the particle or defect using a result of comparison between the digital data table and the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table.
Feature 7: A particle/defect detecting method according to the above Feature 5 or 6, wherein the particle/defect determining unit includes a means for comparing the electric signal with a threshold and determining detection of the particle or defect when the electric signal exceeds the threshold, and the partial data stored or saved in the digital data table includes digital data appearing earlier by at least one or more sampling intervals than digital data having a time when the particle/defect determining means determines that the electric signal exceeded the threshold and appearing later by at least one or more sampling intervals therethan and also includes the inspection coordinate data corresponding to the digital data.
Feature 8: A particle/defect detecting method according to the above Feature 5 or 6, wherein the particle/defect determining means includes a unit for comparing the digital data from the A/D converting means with a threshold and determining the detection of the particle or defect when the digital data exceeds the threshold, and the partial data stored or saved in the digital data table includes digital data appearing earlier by at least one or more sampling intervals than a time of the digital data when the particle/defect determining means determines that the digital data exceeded the threshold and appearing later by at least one or more sampling intervals therethan and also includes the inspection coordinate data corresponding to the digital data.
Feature 9: A particle/defect detecting method according to any of Features 1 to 8, wherein a data interval of data in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table in the y axis direction is set at about 5 μm when converted to a distance on the surface of the inspection object. In other words, in order to secure a coordinate accuracy necessary for the particle detected by the surface inspection equipment of the present embodiment to be put in the display screen of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) when the operator review the particle using the SEM; the coordinate detection resolution is required not to be higher than that of the SEM. To this end, the coordinate detection resolution is set desirably at “5 μm or less”. In general, the higher a resolution is the better the result is. In an practical case, however, it is meaningless even when the resolution of an observation optical system is remarkably increased, and the numbers of pixels of a CCD as an imaging element in horizontal and vertical directions have their limits. Thus when the resolution is increased, the field of view of the SEM becomes correspondingly narrower. For this reason, the lower limit of the resolution is set desirably at “nearly 1 μm”
Feature 10: A particle/defect detecting method according to any of Features 1 to 9, wherein a data interval of data in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table in the y axis direction is selected so that a distance between 2 adjacent main scan focuses on the inspection object in the sub-scan direction is divisible by the aforementioned data interval.
Feature 11: A particle/defect detecting method according to any of the above Features 1 to 10, wherein the illumination means is arranged so that at least one of optical conditions of an illustrated spot diameter, an incident angle to the surface of the inspection object, a polarization state of the illuminated light, a wavelength of the light source, and an luminous intensity of the light source is varied into a plurality of states, and a plurality of such illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data tables are provided so as to store or save a plurality of such illustrated spot illumination distributions corresponding to the plurality of optical conditions.
Feature 12: A particle/defect detecting method according to the above Feature 11, wherein one of the plurality of illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data tables stored or saved corresponding to the selected optical conditions is automatically selected according to the selected optical conditions upon inspection to be used upon the inspection.
Feature 13: A particle/defect detecting method according to any of the above Features 1 to 10, wherein an illustrated spot observation camera is provided to measure the relative illumination distribution within the illustrated spot, and the relative illumination distribution of the illuminated light within the illustrated spot measured by the illustrated spot observation camera is stored or saved in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table as two-dimensional matrix data.
Feature 14: A particle/defect detecting method according to any of the above Features 1 to 10, wherein an illustrated spot observation camera is provided to measure the relative illumination distribution within the illustrated spot, and after the image resolution of the illustrated spot observation camera is changed, the relative illumination distribution of the illuminated light within the illustrated spot measured by the illustrated spot observation camera is stored or saved in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table as two-dimensional matrix data.
Feature 15: A particle/defect detecting method according to the above Feature 11 or 12, wherein an illustrated spot observation camera is provided to measure the relative illumination distribution within the illustrated spot, and the relative illumination distribution of the illuminated light within the illustrated spot measured by the illustrated spot observation camera is stored or saved in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table as two-dimensional matrix data.
Feature 16: A particle/defect detecting method according to the above Feature 11 or 12, wherein an illustrated spot observation camera is provided to measure the relative illumination distribution within the illustrated spot, and after the image resolution of the illustrated spot observation camera is changed, the relative illumination distribution of the illuminated light within the illustrated spot measured by the illustrated spot observation camera is stored or saved in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table as two-dimensional matrix data.
Feature 17: A particle/defect detecting method according to the above Feature 11 or 12, wherein a within-illustrated-spot illumination distribution measuring means is provided to measure the relative illumination distribution within the illustrated spot with use of the inspection object having a standard particle deposited thereon, and the relative illumination distribution of the illuminated light within the illustrated spot measured by the within-illustrated-spot illumination distribution measuring unit is stored or saved in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table as two-dimensional matrix data.
Feature 18: A particle/defect detecting method according to any of the above Features 1 to 10, 13, and 14, wherein an illustrated spot illumination distribution is measured by the illustrated spot observation camera for each inspection object to be inspected or for each group of a plurality of inspection objects to be continuously inspected according to the same recipe, and the measured illustrated spot illumination distribution is stored or saved in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table.
Feature 19: Particle/defect inspection equipment for inspecting a particle or a defect present on a surface of an object to be inspected or in interior of the object close to the surface including: an inspection object moving stage for providing a translational motion in its main scan and a translational motion as its sub-scan in a direction nearly perpendicular to the translational motion or providing a rotational motion as its main scan and a translational motion as its sub-scan; a light source; an illumination optical system for illuminating the surface of the inspection object with light from the light source as an illustrated spot having a predetermined size; a scattered/diffracted/reflected light detecting system for detecting light of the illuminated light scattered/diffracted/reflected at the illustrated spot and converting the detected light to an electric signal; an A/D converter for converting the electric signal to digital data; an inspection coordinate detecting mechanism for detecting as inspection coordinate data a position on the surface of the inspection object during inspection at a time corresponding to the converted digital data; a particle/defect determining mechanism for determining presence of the particle or defect on the basis of the electric signal or the digital data; a particle diameter calculation mechanism for calculating a size of the determined particle or defect on the basis of the digital data; and a particle/defect coordinate calculating mechanism for calculating a position coordinate value of the particle or defect on the surface of the inspection object on the basis of information from the inspection coordinate detecting mechanism, wherein the A/D converter includes a digital data table for continuously storing or saving a plurality of the digital data obtained by continuously sampling the electric signal at intervals of a predetermined time on a main scan locus over a period of time corresponding at least 2 turns of the inspection object moving stage and also includes an illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table for storing or saving a relative illumination distribution of the illuminated light within the illustrated spot on the surface of the inspection object in a two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system having a y axis in a direction of a straight line connected from a rotational center of the inspection object moving stage to a center of the illustrated spot and having an x axis perpendicular to the y axis as two-dimensional matrix data having data divisions divided at intervals of a first spacing in an x axis direction and at intervals of a second spacing in a y axis direction, and the particle/defect coordinate calculating mechanism calculates position coordinate values X, Y of the determined particle or defect using a result of comparison between the digital data table and the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table in a two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system (X,Y) having a Y axis corresponding to a direction of a linear symmetric axis on the surface of the inspection object and having an X axis perpendicular to the Y axis.
Feature 20: A particle/defect inspection equipment according to the above Feature 19, wherein the particle diameter calculation mechanism calculates a size of the particle or defect using a result of comparison between the digital data table and the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table.
Feature 21: A particle/defect inspection equipment according to the above Feature 19 or 20, wherein the particle/defect determining mechanism determines the presence of the particle or defect by comparing the electric signal with a threshold.
Feature 22: A particle/defect inspection equipment according to the above Feature 19 or 20, wherein the particle/defect determining mechanism determines the presence of the particle or defect using digital data from the A/D converter or using the digital data stored in the digital data table.
Feature 23: Particle/defect inspection equipment for inspecting a particle or a defect present on a surface of an object to be inspected or in interior of the object close to the surface including: an inspection object moving stage for providing a translational motion in its main scan and a translational motion as its sub-scan in a direction nearly perpendicular to the translational motion or providing a rotational motion as its main scan and a translational motion as its sub-scan; a light source; an illumination optical system for illuminating the surface of the inspection object with light from the light source as an illustrated spot having a predetermined size; a scattered/diffracted/reflected light detecting system for detecting light of the illuminated light scattered/diffracted/reflected at the illustrated spot and converting the detected light to an electric signal; an A/D converter for converting the electric signal to digital data; an inspection coordinate detecting mechanism for detecting as inspection coordinate data a position on the surface of the inspection object during inspection at a time corresponding to the converted digital data; a particle/defect determining mechanism for determining presence of the particle or defect on the basis of the electric signal or the digital data; a particle diameter calculation mechanism for calculating a size of the determined particle or defect on the basis of the digital data; and a particle/defect coordinate calculating mechanism for calculating a position coordinate value of the particle or defect on the surface of the inspection object on the basis of information from the inspection coordinate detecting mechanism, wherein the A/D converter includes a digital data table for storing or saving partial data extracted based on information from the particle/defect determining unit, from a plurality of the digital data continuously obtained by continuously sampling the electric signal at intervals of a predetermined time on a main scan locus over a period of time corresponding at least 2 turns of the inspection object moving stage, the A/D converting means also includes an illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table for storing or saving a relative illumination distribution of the illuminated light within the illustrated spot on the surface of the inspection object in a two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system having a y axis in a direction of a straight line connected from a rotational center of the inspection object moving stage to a center of the illustrated spot and having an x axis perpendicular to the y axis as two-dimensional matrix data having data divisions divided at intervals of a first spacing in an x axis direction and at intervals of a second spacing in a y axis direction, and the particle/defect coordinate calculating mechanism calculates a position coordinate value X, Y of the determined particle or defect using a result of comparison between the digital data table and the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table in a two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system (X,Y) having a Y axis corresponding to a direction of a linear symmetric axis on the surface of the inspection object and having an X axis perpendicular to the Y axis.
Feature 24: Particle/defect inspection equipment according to the above Feature 23, wherein the particle diameter calculation mechanism calculates the size of the particle or defect using a result of comparison between the digital data table and the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table.
Feature 25: Particle/defect inspection equipment according to the above Feature 23 or 24, wherein the particle/defect determining mechanism includes a comparison circuit for comparing the electric signal with a threshold and determining the detection of the particle or defect when the electric signal exceeds the threshold, and the partial data stored or saved in the digital data table includes digital data appearing earlier by at least one or more sampling intervals than digital data having a time when the particle/defect determining mechanism determines that the electric signal exceeded the threshold and appearing later by at least one or more sampling intervals therethan and also includes the inspection coordinate data corresponding to the digital data.
Feature 26: Particle/defect detecting equipment according to the above Feature 23 or 24, wherein the particle/defect determining mechanism includes a mechanism for comparing the digital data from the A/D converting means with a threshold and determining the detection of the particle or defect when the digital data exceeds the threshold, and the partial data stored or saved in the digital data table includes digital data appearing earlier by at least one or more sampling intervals than a time of the digital data when the particle/defect determining means determines that the digital data exceeded the threshold and appearing later by at least one or more sampling intervals therethan and also includes the inspection coordinate data corresponding to the digital data.
Feature 27: Particle/defect inspection equipment according to any of the above Features 19 to 26, wherein a data interval of data in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table in the y axis direction is set at nearly 5 μm or less when converted to a distance on the surface of the inspection object.
Feature 28: Particle/defect inspection equipment according to any of the above Features 19 to 27, wherein an data interval of data in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table in the y axis direction is selected so that a distance between adjacent 2 main scan focuses on the surface of the inspection object in the sub-scan direction is nearly divisible by the aforementioned data interval.
Feature 29: Particle/defect inspection equipment according to any of the above Features 19 to 28, wherein the illumination optical system is arranged so that at least one of optical conditions, that is, an illustrated spot diameter, an incident angle to the surface of the inspection object, a polarization state of the illuminated light, a wavelength of the light source, and a luminous intensity of the light source is changed to a plurality of states; a plurality of such illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data tables are provided; and a plurality of such illustrated spot illumination distributions corresponding to the plurality of optical conditions are stored or saved in the tables.
Feature 30: Particle/defect inspection equipment according to the above Feature 29, wherein one of the plurality of stored or saved illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data tables corresponding to the selected optical conditions is automatically selected according to the selected optical conditions upon inspection and used upon the inspection.
Feature 31: Particle/defect inspection equipment according to any of the above Features 19 to 28, wherein an illustrated spot observation camera is provided to measure a relative illumination distribution within the illustrated spot, and the relative illumination distribution of the illuminated light within the illustrated spot measured by the illustrated spot observation camera is stored or saved in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table as two-dimensional matrix data.
Feature 32: Particle/defect inspection equipment according to the above Features 19 to 28, wherein an illustrated spot observation camera is provided to measure a relative illumination distribution within the illustrated spot, and, after the image resolution of the illustrated spot observation camera is changed, the relative illumination distribution of the illuminated light within the illustrated spot measured by the illustrated spot observation camera is stored or saved in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table as two-dimensional matrix data.
Feature 33: Particle/defect inspection equipment according to the above Feature 29 or 30, an illustrated spot observation camera is provided to measure a relative illumination distribution within the illustrated spot, an the relative illumination distribution of the illuminated light within the illustrated spot measured by the illustrated spot observation camera is stored or saved in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table as two-dimensional matrix data.
Feature 34: Particle/defect inspection equipment according to the above Feature 29 or 30, wherein an illustrated spot observation camera is provided to measure a relative illumination distribution within the illustrated spot and, after the image resolution of the illustrated spot observation camera is changed, the relative illumination distribution of the illuminated light within the illustrated spot measured by the illustrated spot observation camera is stored or saved in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table as two-dimensional matrix data.
Feature 35: Particle/defect inspection equipment according to the above Feature 29 or 30, wherein the equipment has a function of a within-illustrated spot illumination distribution measuring function of measuring a relative illumination distribution within the illustrated spot with use of the inspection object having a standard particle deposited thereon, and the relative illumination distribution of the illuminated light within the illustrated spot measured by the within-illustrated spot illumination distribution measuring function is stored or saved in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table as two-dimensional matrix data.
Feature 36: Particle/defect inspection equipment according to any of the above Feature 19 to 28, 21, and 32, wherein an illustrated spot illumination distribution is measured by the illustrated spot observation camera for each inspection object to be inspected or for each group of a plurality of inspection objects to be continuously inspected according to the same recipe, and the measured illustrated spot illumination distribution is stored or saved in the illustrated-spot illumination-distribution data table.
It should be further understood by those skilled in the art that although the foregoing description has been made on embodiments of the invention, the invention is not limited thereto and various changes and modifications may be made without departing from the spirit of the invention and the scope of the appended claims.
Matsui, Shigeru, Togashi, Takahiro
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