US 12,347,734 B2
Examination of a hole formed in a semiconductor specimen
Rafael Bistritzer, Petach Tikva (IL); Vadim Vereschagin, Ashdod (IL); Grigory Klebanov, Rishon-LeZion (IL); Roman Kris, Jerusalem (IL); Ilan Ben-Harush, Tel-Aviv (IL); Omer Kerem, Hod Hasharon (IL); Asaf Golov, Ness Ziona (IL); and Elad Sommer, Rehovot (IL)
Assigned to Applied Materials Israel Ltd., Rehovot (IL)
Filed by Applied Materials Israel Ltd., Rehovot (IL)
Filed on Jun. 23, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/848,360.
Prior Publication US 2023/0420308 A1, Dec. 28, 2023
Int. Cl. H01L 21/66 (2006.01); G06T 7/00 (2017.01); G06T 7/11 (2017.01); G06T 7/50 (2017.01); G06T 7/66 (2017.01); G06V 10/764 (2022.01)
CPC H01L 22/12 (2013.01) [G06T 7/0004 (2013.01); G06T 7/11 (2017.01); G06T 7/50 (2017.01); G06T 7/66 (2017.01); G06V 10/764 (2022.01); G06T 2207/20021 (2013.01); G06T 2207/30148 (2013.01)] 21 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A system comprising at least one processor and memory circuitry (PMC) configured to:
obtain an image of a hole formed in a semiconductor specimen, wherein the hole exposes at least one layer of a plurality of layers of the semiconductor specimen,
segment the image into a plurality of N regions R1 to RN, wherein, for a manufacturing process of said hole, a predefined region Ri is informative of an over-etch, with i between 1 and N,
generate at least one of:
data Dpix_intensity informative of one or more pixel intensities of the predefined region Ri, or
data Dgeometry informative of one or more geometrical properties of the predefined region Ri, and
feed at least one of Dpix_intensity or Dgeometry to a trained classifier to obtain an output, wherein the output of the trained classifier is usable to determine whether the hole ends at a target layer of the plurality of layers.