The seamless integration of KLA-Tencor inspection tools and the eDR-5200 enables fabs at the 45nm node and beyond to produce a greater number of higher quality defect Paretos* per hour, allowing engineers to take rapid, accurate corrective action to protect their yield.

"As design rules shrink to 45nm and beyond, defect and yield engineers are becoming increasingly concerned about the quality of the defect Pareto coming from their review tools," said Zain Saidin, group vice president for electron-beam technology at KLA-Tencor.

 

"Because our latest generation of inspection tools, the 281x and Puma 9150, are finding critical defects smaller than 50nm, previous-generation e-beam tools are having difficulty reviewing them. A large number of 'Not Found' or 'SEM Non-Visual (SNV)' defects skews the defect Pareto — which is used to make key decisions during both yield ramp and process monitoring. Adding the eDR-5200 to our inspection portfolio enables a dramatically reduced SNV count and a defect Pareto that more accurately represents the population of defects of interest on the wafer — in a shorter time."

The eDR-5200's immersion column design breaks through the resolution barriers hampering traditional SEM review systems, enabling the imaging and classification of <50nm defects. Industry-leading stage accuracy and access to the optical patch image from a KLA-Tencor inspector reduce the percentage of SEM Non-Visuals in the defect Pareto by an order of magnitude or more.

 

Getting to a meaningful defect Pareto quickly is further facilitated by a range of novel approaches to defect classification. For example, Power Assisted Classification (ePAC) allows a user to transition from manual classification to fully automated classification without the need for lengthy and cumbersome setup.

KLA-Tencor has engineered connectivity between the eDR-5200 and KLA-Tencor inspectors to enable inspector recipe setup and optimization on the SEM without repeatedly moving the wafers back and forth between platforms. The result is more than 50 percent reduction in recipe setup time, as well as a significant improvement in recipe quality.

 

As a result, the defect Pareto will contain more defects of interest, and fewer SNV defects. Furthermore, when the eDR-5200 system is used together with a KLA-Tencor inspection tool for process window qualification (PWQ), time to results can be reduced by a factor of ten. Together the eDR-5200 and the KLA-Tencor inspection systems create the highest productivity inspection-review-classification solution available.