DEVICE AND METHOD FOR SURFACE INSPECTION

• Main Authors: TSUCHIYAMA HIROSHI, NOGUCHI MINORU, MORIYAMA ICHIRO, TANABE YOSHIKAZU, KENBO YUKIO, HACHIKAKE YASUO, WATANABE KENJI, ISHIMARU ICHIRO
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; Japanese
• Published: 13.11.2014
• Subjects: BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; ELECTRIC SOLID STATE DEVICES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRICITY; INVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIRCHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES; MEASURING; MEASURING ANGLES; MEASURING AREAS; MEASURING IRREGULARITIES OF SURFACES OR CONTOURS; MEASURING LENGTH, THICKNESS OR SIMILAR LINEARDIMENSIONS; PHYSICS; SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES; TESTING

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a surface inspection device and a surface inspection method, which can discriminate scratches in various shapes occurring on a surface of a processed object (for example, an insulator film on a semiconductor substrate) from foreign materials attached to the processed object, and perform inspection when the processed object is subjected to polishing or grinding processing such as CMP, in semiconductor manufacturing and magnetic head manufacturing.SOLUTION: The surface inspection method of the present invention performs epi-illumination and oblique illumination on scratches and foreign materials occurring on a surface of a polished or ground insulator film with substantially equal light flux, and detects a change in intensity of scattered light generated from shallow scratches and the foreign materials between the epi-illumination time and the oblique illumination time to thereby discriminate the shallow scratches from the foreign materials. The method further discriminates linear scratches from the foreign materials by detecting the directivity of the scattered light in the epi-illumination time. The device for the method is also provided. 【課題】半導体製造や磁気ヘッド製造において、被加工対象物（例えば、半導体基板上の絶縁膜）に対してＣＭＰなどの研磨または研削加工を施した際、その表面に生じる様々な形状を有するスクラッチと付着する異物とを弁別して検査することができるようにした表面検査装置およびその方法を提供することにある。【解決手段】本発明は、研磨または研削された絶縁膜の表面に発生したスクラッチや異物に対してほぼ同じ光束で落射照明と斜方照明とを行い、該落射照明時と斜方照明時との間において浅いスクラッチと異物とから発生する散乱光強度の変化を検出することによって浅いスクラッチと異物とを弁別し、さらに、前記落射照明時における散乱光の指向性を検出することによって線状スクラッチと異物とを弁別することを特徴とする表面検査方法およびその装置である。【選択図】図１