KLA Tencor Corporation Israel
About the company
KLA-Tencor Corporation Israel is a fully owned subsidiary of KLA Corporation, for short KLA Israel. It is a world-leader in overlay metrology. Overlay metrology is one of the key enabling metrology steps to keep up with shrink of Design Rules. The accuracy of overlay metrology is allowing to reduce waste of scrap wafers in the manufacturing process as well as unnecessary rework steps.
The company was founded in 1986 and is located in Migdal Haemek, Israel.
The product portfolio comprises imaging-based overlay metrology as well as scatterometry-based overlay metrology. Both approaches are optically based.
The company key expertise is in advanced microscopy and interferometry
On the company site there are optics, mechanics, electronics laboratories as well as clean rooms for manufacturing.
Project contribution
KLA identified the increased overlay target noise and reduced contrast of overlay targets as inflection points for metrology of such an advanced node as 14A. The envisioned development combines novel modelling approaches with improved target design methodologies to meet the tightening of on-product overlay budget. The R&D effort takes place in WP3, Holistic Metrology and Process Control. There are three main concepts involved in this effort:
Overlay target image preprocessing improvement: This delivers more accuracy and robustness to the control feedback loop.
Overlay target image contrast improvement: The challenge of reduced contrast affects measurability.
This problem can be handled as poor SNR issue requiring to combine hardware development and algorithmic innovation to enhance the part of the signal that carries overlay information and to reduce noise contribution to the signal.
Overlay sampling density improvement for high order overlay corrections in the EUV scanner: In modern lithography, more points need to be measured in the scanner field. This increase in sampling density by one or two orders of magnitude requires to improve throughput of the overlay metrology tool. The idea is to introduce advanced modelling approach for tools entitlement and error budget, leading to improved balance between performance and throughput.