The IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics (INDIN 2008) DCC, Daejeon, Korea July 13-16, 2008

Nano-Level 3-D Measurement System Using 3-Wavelength Laser Light Interference

Seiji Hata 1,Junichiro Hayashi1 , Ichiro Ishimaru 1Shigeaki Morimoto2
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Kagawa University, 2Ryusyo Industries Co. E-mail: hata@eng.kagawa-u.ac.jp

Abstract-To improve the productivity of very large scale of LSIs or large LCD panels, the nano-level measurement to inspect the LSIs is required. To meet with these requirements, a nanolevel 3-D shape extraction method has been introduced and the measurement results are described. To extract a nano-level 3-D shape, the method using laser interference images is effective. Interference image is produced by light reflected by LSI and by reference mirror. At this time, if the position of reference light is changed at regular intervals, the brightness of same coordinate of interference images change like a sine wave. When position heights of LSI differ between two coordinates, the brightness of interference image differs and the phases of brightness pattern differ according to height between each pixel. And combining with different wavelength laser lights, different brightness is able to measure more than one wavelength. Look-up table method is used to combine the multi-wavelength laser light measurement. The experiment results show the method is able to measure more than 10 um height with 10 nm accuracy.

Camera

Laser Mirror Object

Fig. 1. Michelson Interferometer

I.

INTRODUCTION

The productions of LSI devices are increased every year. But, there is some problem when the LSI devices are produced. Micro contaminants (1micrometers or less ) adhere on LSIs surface. Of coerce, the LSIs surface is washed, but micro contaminants are hard to remove by washing. So in current production lines, detecting foreign-particles on silicon wafer, and if micro contaminants were found on wafers, these wafers are scrapped as defectives on device. But when the defective panels are scraped the productivity of the LCDs and plasma displays are decreasing. To solve the problem, it is required to develop a measuring system which can detect positions and shapes of particles on LSI wafers and remove them. The size of particle is bigger than 100nm. The purpose of this research is to extract the 3-D shape of micro object surface patterns and to find out positions and shapes of minute particles. To detect very small foreignparticles, required to measure objects with sub-micron level accuracy, and performance cannot be achieved by the conventional methods. So we propose a method using phase shifts of interference of light to make nano-level measurement

Fig. 1 Phase shift between 2-points

II. OPTICAL SYSTEM A. Phase Shift Method Prepare Interference images obtained by Michelson Interferometer that it was generally used for a sub-micron level measurement. Fig.1 shows Michelson Interferometer. If the positions of reference mirror in fig.1 is moved at predetermined intervals, brightness changes like a sine curve in same coordinate of interference images (See Fig.2). It is phase shift method. If heights differ between two coordinates, their phases of brightness curves are different, too. The phase difference is the function of the height difference between two points.

978-1-4244-2171-8/08/$25.00

2008 IEEE

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Fig. 3 Sine Curve of Brightness Change Fig. 5 Calculated Phase images (20nm deference)

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Table.1 Standard Deviation Radius (pixel) Standard deviation (degree) 50 0.6100 100 0.6998 150 0.73187 200 1.0320 250 1.4676

III. 3-D HEIGHT CODE LOOK-UP TABLE A. Principle of Method Theoretically, the measurement range using one wave-length laser is limited only half of laser wavelength. It is difficult to measure more than 1 um. To solve the difficulty, the measurement system using combination of multi-wavelength lasers has been introduced. As is shown in fig.6, the phase shift w of the brightness change is coded . (code is changes from 0,1,2n,0,1,2n,0,1,2) The bottom of fig.6 shows the combination of codes differs to each other along more than single wave-length range. So if we used three wavelength laser lights, the combination of code differs along 200-300 um..

Fig. 4 Measured Brightness and Overlapped Sine Curve

B. Accuracy of calculating Fig.3 shows that the sine curve is made from brightness changes of one point in interference images. So the phase is measured by this sine curve. Now the phase was taken by comparing with the correlation of sine curve to brightness pattern, to detect the reliable phase difference in the inference images. Because the brightness pattern has noises, so it was needed to developed measurement system under the noises. In this case, the phase measured by using regularized correlation matching method. This result is showed in fig.4. These plotted points are measuring brightness value in interference images by camera. And the sine curves phase is highest correlation value in this brightness pattern. As is shown in fig.4, the max brightness value is matched with sine curve, and minimum value is similar too. So we say this matching method is effective in this research. It needs to verify this methods accuracy. So the easy confirmations were experimented. The two calculated phase images obtained at two removed intervals phase differences are extracted, these phase differences were compared with really intervals and measurement errors were evaluated. The two calculated images are shown in fig.5 and the results are shown in table.1. We got the errors at the center in calculated images and calculated standard deviation inside of 50 pixel radius circle. So the error deviations are about 0.61.0 degree in phase. In the 250 pixel radius circle, the max error is about 1.8nm. Its 3sigma is about 6nm.

Fig. 6 Combination of Multi-wavelength Lasers

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Fig. 7 Arrangement of Height Code Table

Fig. 11 First

Step of Code Table Generation

Fig. 12 Second Fig. 8 Measurement Error of Phase Shift

Step of Code Table Generation

First, the code table made under two wavelength laser lights. Fig.7 is code table image. The code number is flowed diagonal in two wavelength code table. Because, the code number (x and y) increases one by one. So code number reaches max number, next code number is 0. So the height number increases one by one for diagonal. And this height number difference is the object height. B. Phase Shift Detection Error Code table was made by the method described in A, and the object was measured according to the movement of the reference mirror. But if the code table is constructed as all the table column fulfilled, and if there is some errors to detect phases, it may indicate the differed column, and at that time, the mistake should be very large. For example fig.8 shows these measuring cases. Difference of height code number is 3, but this result difference of it is 3300 (Height code number changed from 742, 743, 745, 746. But the nearly column number 4098 or 4099 is big difference from really number 744.). In this result, we can not measure the real height by this code table. So the code table should be constructed as it can contain the margin of measurement error. Fig.8 shows the look up table which every column contains different values. It causes large measurement errors. To solve the problems, we propose new code table. In new code table, the error code which is differed one or two values is included error margin in common. This method is the height code number surrounding same number values. The same height code is read from the table when the code number values in x or y axis is differed only one or two. In this method height code errors are expected to the decrease. In fig.9 is example of

Fig. 9 Example of New Code Table

Made x-axis and y-axis Plotted code Approximate straight line Plotted surrounding line
Fig. 10 Flow-chart of Height Code Table Generation

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Fig. 14 Nano-level Measurement System Using 3 Laser-lights Interference

Fig. 13 3-D Height Code Table

new code table. Same code numbers appears 6 or more times. C. Height Code Table Generation Followings explain errors tolerant new code table generation method. Fig.10 is the flow chart of method in making new code table. First, the max code number is tripled the x-axis and y-axis. Because, the new code table must have same code numbers. So, there were the empty zones in table. And this means that each wavelength of laser light was divided three times more accurate than past. Second the measuring value in the phase images is plotted in this code table. Fig.11 shows this processing. And the code table is approximated the straight line in plotted phase code number. This processing is shown in fig.12. Finally the same code number placed to these surroundings along straight line. The result is shown in fig.9. The table value means the measuring heights with better reliably. When using the two different wavelength laser lights, the code table is 2-D table. We made 3-D code table when using three different wavelength laser lights. This code table image is shown in fig.13. The code numbers are placed according to W1, W2 and W3 axis. So, max code number of combined placed by max code values in each axis. IV. EXPERIMENTS Nano-level 3-D measurement system using the combination of 3 laser-lights interference has been developed as is shown in fig. 14. The combination of laser light wave-lengths are 488nm(B), 532 nm(G) and 670 nm(R). First, the combination of R and G laser lights measurement with the 2-D height code table is examined. To make the height code table, reference mirror is moved by 20 nm steps, and an interference image is got by each movement. The observed object is the standard specimen with 52 nm step. The observed image is shown in fig. 15 . Fig. 16 shows the 2-D height code table constructed to measure the specimen.
Fig. 15 Observed Image of 52 nm Step
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Fig. 16 2-D Height Code Table for R and G Laser Lights Combination

Fig. 17 Observed 3-D Shape

The result of the measurement is shown in fig. 17. In the image, some optical distortion caused curvature profile. But the step can be clearly observed. The calculated height of the step was 54 nm. The certified height of the step is 54 nm. The accuracy of the measurement is acceptable.

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measurement. Fig. 20 shows the result of the measurement of the specimen. There are some measurement errors at the fringe of steps, but the shape of the specimen has correctly reconstructed. The calculated height was almost just 4 um. It proves that the measurement system with 3 laser lights combination is able to 10 times longer length of laser wave length. Also the accuracy of the measurement can be satisfied. TAbout 20 times observations are enough to calculate the 3-D shape. It means that the high speed measurement can be achieved using the method.
Fig.18 Standard Specimen with 4 um Step

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V. CONCLUSION
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In this paper, nano-level 3-D Measurement system using 3laser lights interference. The brightness shift measurement of laser interference gives the nano-level measurement. Also, the 3 wavelength lasers combination enables to measure more than 10 um height measurement. Only 20 times of observation of interference images are enough to calculate 10 um level height. It means the method achieves the high speed measurement. Currently, there are some remained problems to be refined. In the near future, the refined measurement system will appear. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This research was supported by METI, Japan. We thank for their support. REFERENCES
[1]Shoji Muramatsu, Yoshiki Kobayashi, Kazuya takahashi, Eiji Shimizu Development of Template Matching Hardware and Its Speed Processing Strategy, Trans EIC,Vol.J83-D-2, No.7, PP1667-1675,2000. [2]Mitsuji Ikeda, Shoji Yoshida, Keisuke Nakashima, Nagaharu Hamada, Haruo Yoda, High Speed Template Matching By Monotonize Normalized Correlation, Trans EIC, Vol.J83-D-2, No.9, pp1861-1869,2000 [3]Shunji Maeda, Takashi Hiroi, Hitoshi Kubota, Automated Usual Inspection of LSI Wafer Multilayer Pattern Using a DerivativePolarity Comparisonal Gorithm, Trans EIC, Vol.J82-D-2, No.1, pp39-52, 1999.
[4] M.Nomura, J.Hayashi, S.Morimoto, S.Hata, I.Ishimaru, Nano-Level 3-D Measurement System Using Combination of 3-Wavelength Laser Lights, Proc of SICE2008, pp.759-763(2007)

Fig. 19 3-D Height Code Table for 3 Laser-lights Combination

Fig. 20 Result of 3-D Measurement

Next, the combination of 3 laser lights measurement with the 3-D height code table is examined. Fig.18 is the standard specimen with 4 um step. Fig.19 is the 3-D height code table used for the3 laser lights, R,G and B, combination

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