Micro-defect repair assisted with contour-based 2D metrology

To deliver a defect-free photomask, is an essential step of mask manufacturing. EB (Electron-beam) repair is widely applied to deal with defects on photomasks, and has to cover etch and deposition capabilities without any pattern damage. However, mask repair is facing more challenges, with the shrinkage of minimum feature resolution for advanced technology nodes. Especially for micro defects at the edge of wafer printability specifications, differences between defect and reference may be tiny and hard to distinguish in visual or by existing methods on repair tools, so that it was difficult to start. In this paper, a new approach named Contour-based 2D Metrology will be introduced as assistance for the repair processes of such challenging micro defects. Both CDSEM images of defect and reference are input for extracting; then contour-based patterns are overlapped for each other and compared with GDS as well, to describe quantitative differences for each micro area. Assisted with such rigorous and comprehensive data analysis, micro defects can be accurately positioned according to Aims Results and repair processes would be proceeding.