Improvement of actinic blank inspection and phase defect analysis

We have developed an actinic full-field inspection system to detect multilayer phase defect with dark field imaging. A new CCD camera was installed onto the system with an objective of throughput and inspection sensitivity improvement. As the result, the throughput was improved from 14.25 to 4.75 hours per plate, and the detection probability for 1.2 nm-high 40 nm-wide defect was found to be 95.7 %. This means that the system has a potential of its extendibility to beyond 22 nm HP inspection