Photoresist pattern defects
Detect resist pattern collapse, bridging, footing, and scumming after develop.
Example outputs shown for illustration. Numbers depend on your samples and protocol.
Image: Mohammad et al., Nanoscale Research Letters 2013 8:139, CC BY 2.0
What you get
The measurement, today
After-develop inspection is a manual scan for a short list of failure modes. Subtle bridges and partial collapse are easy to miss at speed, and the counts are rarely recorded per field.
What it costs
A resist defect becomes a hard mask for the etch beneath it, so it prints straight into the device. Caught at develop, the wafer can be stripped and reworked; caught after etch, it is scrap.
From image to reviewed result
- 1
Image after develop
Load after-develop SEM or optical images of the resist pattern.
- 2
Find deviations
Regions that depart from the intended pattern are detected.
- 3
Classify the mode
Each defect is labelled collapse, bridge, footing, or scumming.
- 4
Map and tally
Defects are located and totalled per field with an affected-area fraction.
Scope: Flags pattern deviations visible in the image and classifies them by failure mode. Whether a field is reworkable is your process decision.
Related applications
Semiconductor defect patterns
Classify wafer-map patterns and quantify defect clusters and densities.
Line edge & width roughness (LER / LWR)
Line edge and line width roughness as 3-sigma deviation along patterned lines.
Critical dimension (CD) metrology
Line width, space, and via diameter measured from top-down images, with per-feature tables.
Send a sample image and a measurement goal
We will show the closest ConductVision workflow and flag what needs custom validation for your images.
