THICKNESS MEASUREMENT USING AN ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPE

摘要

The present invention relates to a method of determining a film thickness and comprises identifying a depth associated with a defect in an underlying material and forming the film over the underlying material. The method further comprises identifying a depth associated with the defect in the film and then using the identified depths to determine the film thickness. The present invention also relates to a system for determining a film thickness and comprises a defect inspection tool operable to identify a location of one or more defects in an underlying material and a topology measurement tool operable to measure a change in topology of a surface. The system also comprises a controller operably coupled to the defect inspection tool and the topology measurement tool. The controller is adapted to receive location information from the defect inspection tool relating to the one or more defects and use the location information to generate and transmit one or more control signals to the topology measurement tool to evaluate a topology of an underlying material and a film at the location corresponding to the one or more defect to thereby generate topology information. Lastly, the controller is adapted to receive the topology information form the topology measurement tool and determine a film thickness using the topology information.