Abstract: Methods, metrology modules and target designs are provided, which improve the accuracy of metrology measurements. Methods provide flexible handling of multiple measurement recipes and setups and enable relating them to landscape features that indicate their relation to resonance regions and to flat regions. Clustering of recipes, self-consistency tests, common processing of aggregated measurements, noise reduction, cluster analysis, detailed analysis of the landscape and targets with skewed cells are employed separately or in combination to provide cumulative improvements of measurement accuracy.

Abstract: Systems, metrology modules and methods are provided, which identify, per wafer site, components of residuals from measurement of metrology metric(s), and optimize measurement parameters for each site, according to the identified residuals' components. Certain embodiments utilize metric landscapes to identify sensitive sites and/or to identify sites exhibiting highest accuracy, and corresponding metrics may be combined over the wafer to further enhance the metrology performance. Zonal analysis may be used to reduce the systematic errors, and disclosed per-site analysis may be used to further reduce the non-systematic error components, and relate the remaining residuals components to process variation over the wafer.

Abstract: A wavelet-analysis system and method for use in fabricating semiconductor device wafers, the system including a misregistration metrology tool operative to measure at least one measurement site on a wafer, thereby generating an output signal, and a wavelet-based analysis engine operative to generate at least one wavelet-transformed signal by applying at least one wavelet transformation to the output signal and generate a quality metric by analyzing the wavelet-transformed signal.

Abstract: Methods, metrology modules and target designs are provided, which improve the accuracy of metrology measurements. Methods provide flexible handling of multiple measurement recipes and setups and enable relating them to landscape features that indicate their relation to resonance regions and to flat regions. Clustering of recipes, self-consistency tests, common processing of aggregated measurements, noise reduction, cluster analysis, detailed analysis of the landscape and targets with skewed cells are employed separately or in combination to provide cumulative improvements of measurement accuracy.

Abstract: Systems, metrology modules and methods are provided, which identify, per wafer site, components of residuals from measurement of metrology metric(s), and optimize measurement parameters for each site, according to the identified residuals' components. Certain embodiments utilize metric landscapes to identify sensitive sites and/or to identify sites exhibiting highest accuracy, and corresponding metrics may be combined over the wafer to further enhance the metrology performance. Zonal analysis may be used to reduce the systematic errors, and disclosed per-site analysis may be used to further reduce the non-systematic error components, and relate the remaining residuals components to process variation over the wafer.

Abstract: Methods are provided for deriving a partially continuous dependency of metrology metric(s) on recipe parameter(s), analyzing the derived dependency, determining a metrology recipe according to the analysis, and conducting metrology measurement(s) according to the determined recipe. The dependency may be analyzed in form of a landscape such as a sensitivity landscape in which regions of low sensitivity and/or points or contours of low or zero inaccuracy are detected, analytically, numerically or experimentally, and used to configure parameters of measurement, hardware and targets to achieve high measurement accuracy. Process variation is analyzed in terms of its effects on the sensitivity landscape, and these effects are used to characterize the process variation further, to optimize the measurements and make the metrology both more robust to inaccuracy sources and more flexible with respect to different targets on the wafer and available measurement conditions.

Abstract: Methods, metrology modules and target designs are provided, which improve the accuracy of metrology measurements. Methods provide flexible handling of multiple measurement recipes and setups and enable relating them to landscape features that indicate their relation to resonance regions and to flat regions. Clustering of recipes, self-consistency tests, common processing of aggregated measurements, noise reduction, cluster analysis, detailed analysis of the landscape and targets with skewed cells are employed separately or in combination to provide cumulative improvements of measurement accuracy.

Abstract: Methods are provided for deriving a partially continuous dependency of metrology metric(s) on recipe parameter(s), analyzing the derived dependency, determining a metrology recipe according to the analysis, and conducting metrology measurement(s) according to the determined recipe. The dependency may be analyzed in form of a landscape such as a sensitivity landscape in which regions of low sensitivity and/or points or contours of low or zero inaccuracy are detected, analytically, numerically or experimentally, and used to configure parameters of measurement, hardware and targets to achieve high measurement accuracy. Process variation is analyzed in terms of its effects on the sensitivity landscape, and these effects are used to characterize the process variation further, to optimize the measurements and make the metrology both more robust to inaccuracy sources and more flexible with respect to different targets on the wafer and available measurement conditions.