Apr. 10, 2007 — The German company Vistec Semiconductor Systems GmbH and TOOL Corporation of Tokyo, Japan, have announced the integration of Vistec’s SEM-based CD measurement system LWM9000 SEM and TOOL’s layout visualization platform, LAVIS. The integration makes it possible to display a measuring layout design data on LAVIS, and visually create a “recipe” quickly using simple mouse operations. The LWM9000 SEM can then read the recipes directly.

Performing optical proximity correction (OPC) and inspecting defects that derive from contamination or manufacturing are inadequate to improve yield rate of chip manufacturing, the partners say. Therefore, there is an increasing demand for high precision measurement technology that can measure patterns that statistically tend to have defects.

LWM9000 SEM is a SEM-based CD measurement system for 65 nm mask technology and beyond that promises stable and significant measurement precision of better than 1 nm (3 sigma) with long-term repeatable performance.

Recipes that include such information as coordinates and criteria of measurement regions must be highly accurate. Reduction in time required to create these recipes promises to improve the efficiency of the mask making process.