“Here’s the fundamental challenge,” said Fenske. “As critical dimensions and killer defects get smaller, micro inspection requires ever increasing magnification and resolution – and longer inspection times. Which is why micro inspections are usually limited to just a small part of the semiconductor wafer and on a small sampling of wafers, perhaps only one or two from a lot. Unfortunately, that leaves a great deal of wafer real estate uninspected!”
“And that’s the big void that automated macro wafer inspection can fill,” said Errol Akomer, Applications Director at Microtronic. “Today’s generation of ultra high-speed semiconductor macro defect wafer inspection systems, such as our EagleView, can now capture full-wafer, high-resolution images of every wafer in the lot within a few minutes, without needing recipes. So fabs can now do 100% macro defect wafer inspections after many more process steps, to catch defects that otherwise would have been missed – random defects, intermittent process or tool issues and a great deal more.”
EagleView(TM) is a trademark of Microtronic, Inc.
SOURCE Microtronic, Inc.