SEMVision^® G10 Defect Analysis

Defect review has always been an integral part of semiconductor fabrication as the means to monitor and control the quality of individual steps in the manufacturing process. With the continuous scaling and shrinkage of features, the size of the defects of interest (DOI) continue to decrease as well. These smaller defects directly impact device yield and demand extremely high-resolution imaging to detect and distinguish the defects from the process variation noise. Additionally, with the increasing complexity of device architectures and transition to 3D structures, like the Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistor, higher resolution is needed not only to detect defects, but to also characterize defects.  This allows chip manufacturers to identify the root-cause of problems and take appropriate corrective action for faster ramp and time-to-market.

The SEMVision G10 defect review system integrates novel cold field emission (CFE) technology and offers industry-leading, sub-1nm resolution to address many of today’s challenges. This high resolution is a critical enabler for EUV photoresist review at >10x reduced eBeam dose, an area where traditional eBeam tools have started lacking the requisite image quality. The system offers a wide range of imaging capabilities, including the use of Elluminator^™ technology which has been an industry standard for back-scattered electron (BSE), see-through (ST) imaging and high aspect ratio (HAR) defect detection. For un-patterned wafers, the G10 enables comprehensive, high-productivity review using an enhanced light source and new optics that enable optical detection of defects <13nm. The SEMVision G10 also leverages and extends state-of-the-art automation solutions, enabling higher fab productivity and accelerating the ramp process to high volume manufacturing.

The well-adopted Purity^® ADC (Automated Defect Classification) engine is powered with advanced machine learning capabilities, becoming a one-stop solution to not only filter out nuisance defects, but to also provide a high-purity, fully-classified pareto of yield-limiting defects.  This pareto chart is particularly important in advanced technology nodes, where false-alarm-rates are increasing in optical wafer inspection tools. This market-leading technology is a proven standard across foundries and memory fabs, used to correctly classify numerous defects and accurately monitor statistical process control. CFE-based high-resolution images improve the quality of this process by detecting smaller defects and providing higher defect-detail sensitivity than TFE-based systems.

The G10 joins the SEMVision family and a fleet of over 2,000 systems worldwide.  SEMVision has been leading the inline defect review market since its introduction almost two decades ago. While the G7 will continue to serve the mature technology nodes, the SEMVision G10 with CFE technology ushers in a new era of defect detection and characterization for advanced 3D structures, like GAA transistors, EUV and advanced memory scaling.