Methods and systems for regularizing the optimization of application specific semiconductor measurement system parameter settings
US12360062B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | May 31, 2022 |
| Grant date | Jul 15, 2025 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jun 10, 2043 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH01L22/20
- WIPO fieldMeasurement
- WIPO sectorInstruments
Abstract
Methods and systems for optimizing a semiconductor measurement recipe that is robust to variations of hardware modeling parameters and geometric modeling errors are described herein. Robust measurement recipe optimization minimizes a cost function including one or more regularization terms that constrain the process space, and thus, significantly reduces the computational effort required to optimize a measurement recipe. This reduces overall process time and improves wafer throughput. In some examples, optimization is performed based on measurement data associated with multiple instances of a semiconductor structure; each instance characterized a different value of one or more geometric parameters of interest. In some examples, the search for optimized measurement recipes is limited to the discrete set of measurement system parameter values associated with the available measurement data set. In this manner, the performance of a particular measurement recipe is validated using existing measurement data.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.