Mask inspection method and mask inspection apparatus

摘要

According to one embodiment, a method of detecting a defect of a semiconductor exposure mask includes acquiring a background intensity from a surface height distribution of the mask, acquiring a standard background intensity distribution from the background intensity, making light of an arbitrary wavelength incident on the mask, and acquiring an image at a position of interest of the mask, acquiring background intensity raw data, based on a signal intensity of the acquired image at the position of interest and a mean value of image intensity data in a peripheral area of the position of interest, finding a correction coefficient of the signal intensity, based on a ratio of the background intensity raw data to the standard background intensity distribution, correcting the signal intensity by multiplying the signal intensity.

主权项

1. A method of detecting a defect of a semiconductor exposure mask, comprising:
acquiring background intensities at a plurality of points on the mask from a surface height distribution of the mask; acquiring a standard background intensity distribution from the background intensities using a fitting approximation; making light of an arbitrary wavelength incident on the mask, and acquiring an image at a position of interest of the mask; acquiring background intensity raw data, based on a signal intensity of the acquired image at the position of interest and a mean value of image intensity data in a peripheral area of the position of interest; finding a correction coefficient of the signal intensity, based on a ratio of the background intensity raw data to the standard background intensity distribution; correcting the signal intensity by multiplying the signal intensity at the position of interest by the correction coefficient; and determining whether the corrected signal intensity is a predetermined threshold or more.