SURFACE INSPECTION APPARATUS FOR INSPECTING PRESENCE OR ABSENCE OF CRACKS IN SEMICONDUCTOR SUBSTRATE

• Main Authors: KIKUCHI MASATO, KIDA HIROAKI, SEKIDA SABURO
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 14.04.2005
• Edition: 7
• Subjects: BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; ELECTRIC SOLID STATE DEVICES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRICITY; INVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIRCHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES; MEASURING; PHYSICS; SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES; TESTING

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a surface inspection apparatus for substrates, capable of detecting processors which processor have troubles in composite semiconductor manufacturing equipment, consisting of a plurality of substrate processors made in-line. SOLUTION: The schlieren-method surface inspection apparatus 1 is provided with a temporary placement table 2 for mounting a semiconductor substrate; a detection part 19 for detecting the presence or absence of discontinuous parts, when grayscale distribution data on images acquired be a photographing part 15 is differentiated; an image-classifying part 18 for determining whether the detected discontinuous parts are cracks or stains on the basis of their size; and a data processing part 16 for outputting photographed images on a display 20. In the photographing part 15, a light irradiated from a light source 3 is diffused in parallel by a collimator 4 and refracted by a beam splitter 7, to direct parallel beams towar the side of the back surface of the semiconductor substrate; the parallel beams are condensed onto the surface of the semiconductor substrate via a schlieren microscope 11 provided with both a varifocal lens and a silicon lens; and light reflected at the surface of the semiconductor substrate is passed through the beam splitter 7 to form an image in a camera 12. COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI