Defect detection of a semiconductor specimen

US12223641B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Applied Materials Israel Ltd. · IL

Inventors

• Boaz Dudovich · Rehovot, IL
• Assaf Ariel · Rehovot, IL
• Amir Bar · Rehovot, IL
• Lior Yehieli · Rehovot, IL
• Chen Itzikowitz · Rehovot, IL
• Shiran Ben Israel · Rehovot, IL
• Lior Katz · Jerusalem, IL
• Eli Oren Joni · Rehovot, IL
• Eyal Rot · Modiin-Maccabim-Reut, IL

Key dates

• Filing date: May 19, 2022
• Grant date: Feb 11, 2025
• Expiry date: Apr 18, 2043

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06T2207/30148
• WIPO field: Measurement
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

There is provided a system and method of defect detection of a semiconductor specimen. The method includes obtaining a first image of the specimen acquired at a first bit depth, converting by a first processor the first image to a second image with a second bit depth lower than the first bit depth, transmitting the second image to a second processor configured to perform first defect detection on the second image using a first defect detection algorithm to obtain a first set of defect candidates, and sending locations of the first set of defect candidates to the first processor, extracting, from the first image, a set of image patches corresponding to the first set of defect candidates based on the locations, and performing second defect detection on the set of image patches using a second defect detection algorithm to obtain a second set of defect candidates.