Method of determining control parameters of a device manufacturing process

• Main Authors: Anunciado, Roy, Van Ingen Schenau, Koenraad, Tel, Wim Tjibbo, Van Gorp, Simon Hendrik Celine, Maslow, Mark John, Slachter, Abraham, Staals, Frank, Jochemsen, Marinus, Warnaar, Patrick
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 26.09.2023
• Subjects: APPARATUS SPECIALLY ADAPTED THEREFOR; BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; CALCULATING; CINEMATOGRAPHY; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; ELECTRIC SOLID STATE DEVICES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRICITY; ELECTROGRAPHY; GAMMA RAY OR X-RAY MICROSCOPES; HOLOGRAPHY; IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL; IRRADIATION DEVICES; MATERIALS THEREFOR; NUCLEAR ENGINEERING; NUCLEAR PHYSICS; ORIGINALS THEREFOR; PHOTOGRAPHY; PHOTOMECHANICAL PRODUCTION OF TEXTURED OR PATTERNED SURFACES,e.g. FOR PRINTING, FOR PROCESSING OF SEMICONDUCTORDEVICES; PHYSICS; SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES; TECHNIQUES FOR HANDLING PARTICLES OR IONISING RADIATION NOTOTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR

A method including: obtaining an image of at least part of a substrate, wherein the image includes at least one feature of a device being manufactured in a layer on the substrate; obtaining a layout of features associated with a previous layer adjacent to the layer on the substrate; calculating one or more image-related metrics in dependence on: 1) a contour determined from the image including the at least one feature and 2) the layout; and determining one or more control parameters of a lithographic apparatus and/or one or more further processes in a manufacturing process of the device in dependence on the one or more image-related metrics, wherein at least one of the control parameters is determined to modify the geometry of the contour in order to improve the one or more image-related metrics.