Mask inspection of a semiconductor specimen

• Main Authors: Cohen, Boaz, Shkalim, Ariel, Chereshnya, Alexander, Cohen, Oren Shmuel, Ovechkin, Vladimir, Petel, Ori, Madmon, Ronen, Bal, Evgeny
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 31.05.2022
• Subjects: APPARATUS SPECIALLY ADAPTED THEREFOR; CALCULATING; CINEMATOGRAPHY; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTROGRAPHY; HOLOGRAPHY; IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL; INVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIRCHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES; MATERIALS THEREFOR; MEASURING; ORIGINALS THEREFOR; PHOTOGRAPHY; PHOTOMECHANICAL PRODUCTION OF TEXTURED OR PATTERNED SURFACES,e.g. FOR PRINTING, FOR PROCESSING OF SEMICONDUCTORDEVICES; PHYSICS; TESTING

There is provided a mask inspection system and a method of mask inspection. The method comprises: during a runtime scan of a mask of a semiconductor specimen, processing a plurality of aerial images of the mask acquired by the mask inspection system to calculate a statistic-based Edge Positioning Displacement (EPD) of a potential defect, wherein the statistic-based EPD is calculated using a Print Threshold (PT) characterizing the mask and is applied to each of the one or more acquired aerial images to calculate respective EPD of the potential defect therein; and filtering the potential defect as a "runtime true" defect when the calculated statistic-based EPD exceeds a predefined EPD threshold, and filtering out the potential defect as a "false" defect when the calculated statistic-based EPD is lower than the predefined EPD threshold. The method can further comprise after-runtime EPD-based filtering of the plurality of "runtime true" defects.