Method and apparatus for obtaining two- or three-dimensional information from scanning electron microscopy

Claim 1

A system for determining one or more critical dimension(s) of a semiconductor structure comprising: a scanning electron microscope; a parallel distributed process operationally connected to an output of the scanning electron microscope, said parallel distributed process containing coefficients that provide a multi dimensional mapping space for the output of said scanning electron microscope to map to an output value that provides information on the critical dimension of the semiconductor structure.

Claim 2

A system for determining one or more critical dimension(s) of a semiconductor structure comprising: a scanning electron microscope; a parallel distributed process operationally connected to an output of the scanning electron microscope, said parallel distributed process containing coefficients that provide a multi dimensional mapping space for the output of said scanning electron microscope to map to an output value that provides information on the critical dimension of the semiconductor structure.

Claim 6

A method for determining the three dimensional characteristics of a semiconductor structure from a two dimensional waveform, comprising the steps of: providing a two dimensional waveform of a semiconductor structure from a first measurement instrument; mapping said two dimensional waveform through a multi-dimensional decision space to a corresponding three dimensional characteristic.

Claim 7

A method for determining the three dimensional characteristics of a semiconductor structure from a two dimensional waveform, comprising the steps of: providing a two dimensional waveform of a semiconductor structure from a first measurement instrument; mapping said two dimensional waveform through a multi-dimensional decision space to a corresponding three dimensional characteristic.

Claim 13

A method for determining the critical dimension of a semiconductor structure with a scanning electron microscope comprising the steps of: collecting a first measurement of a first semiconductor structure from a scanning electron microscope; collecting a second measurement of said first semiconductor structure from an atomic force microscope; establishing a relationship between said first measurement and said second measurement of said first semiconductor structure wherein said relationship indicates said second measurement if a third measurement from a scanning electron microscope of a second semiconductor structure has characteristics similar to said first semiconductor structure; and mapping a two dimensional waveform through a multi-dimensional decision space to a corresponding three dimensional characteristic using a parallel distributed process operationally connected to an output of said scanning electron microscope, said parallel distributed process containing coefficients that provide said multi-dimensional mapping space for the out put of said scanning electron microscope to map to an output value that provides information on the critical dimension of the semiconductor structure.

Claim 14

A method for determining the critical dimension of a semiconductor structure with a scanning electron microscope comprising the steps of: collecting a first measurement of a first semiconductor structure from a scanning electron microscope; collecting a second measurement of said first semiconductor structure from an atomic force microscope; establishing a relationship between said first measurement and said second measurement of said first semiconductor structure wherein said relationship indicates said second measurement if a third measurement from a scanning electron microscope of a second semiconductor structure has characteristics similar to said first semiconductor structure; and mapping a two dimensional waveform through a multi-dimensional decision space to a corresponding three dimensional characteristic using a parallel distributed process operationally connected to an output of said scanning electron microscope, said parallel distributed process containing coefficients that provide said multi-dimensional mapping space for the out put of said scanning electron microscope to map to an output value that provides information on the critical dimension of the semiconductor structure.