Method for detecting defects in semiconductor sample in distorted sample image

• Main Authors: NEWMAN JON T, MAYER STEFAN, TRUESTER, THOMAS, C, HOFFMANN, ULLI, KOERBER THOMAS
• Format: Patent
• Language: Chinese; English
• Published: 19.03.2024
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL; PHYSICS

The invention discloses a method for detecting defects in a sample, in particular in a semiconductor sample. The method comprises the following steps: providing a reference image of the sample; providing a sample image generated by a particle beam inspection system, wherein the sample image comprises rotation relative to the reference image; segmenting the sample image into sample image areas; segmenting the reference image into reference image regions, wherein each sample image region is assigned one reference image region to form an image region pair; identifying, in each image region pair, a structure present in both a sample image region and an associated reference image region of the image region pair; registering the sample image regions by correcting a lateral offset of the identified structure in each sample image region based on the location of the identified structure in the individual associated reference image regions, thereby forming corrected sample image regions; and comparing each corrected sa