RS-Series Defect Review SEM

The Hitachi RS-Series Defect Review SEM systems are designed for the most advanced review applications, capable of automatic defect redetection (ADR) and automatic defect classification (ADC) of critical defects for 45nm and 32nm design nodes.

Equipped with Hitachi’s proprietary SEM technology, The RS-series is able to accurately separate secondary electrons (SE) and back-scattered electrons (BSE). The materials and topographic information of the defects is accurately collected and highlighted, so that the small and shallow defects can be captured easily and automatically. The high-quality and high-contrast images from multiple detectors enable the defect contours to be drawn correctly to ensure high accuracy and stability for ADC function.

With an on-board high-sensitivity optical microscope, the Hitachi review SEM is able to perform ADR for > 50nm defects on bare Si or film-coated unpatterned wafers at a much higher throughput than other review SEMs.

The RS-series SEM sets the standards for the detection capability on patterned product wafers, with Hitachi’s patented M-cell detection mode. Using this mode, the RS is able to expand the high-throughput cell-to-cell mode beyond the traditional array areas.

Hitachi’s spatial signature analysis (SSA) sampling algorithm enables users to create sampling plans based on the defect distribution on the wafer, and review the defects intelligently and efficiently, and obtain the whole-wafer defectivity accurately and efficiently.