| 摘要 |
<p>An alignment marker used for another use, such as in a stepper, has been conventionally used for finding the position, specified by CAD data, of a final functional defect of a semiconductor chip detected by fail bit inspections. However, this alignment marker does not coincide exactly with a design coordinate system which is established on the basis of a virtually existing scribe center and, when the semiconductor chip is positioned by using the marker, an error of tens of micrometers occurs. Therefore, at the time of observing a defect at a point designated by design coordinate values, a considerable amount of man-hour has been required, because the designated point of the defect to be observed is deviated from the actual position by about several to ten cells and the vicinity of the point must be visually searched for the defect. According to this invention, patterns such that the position on each coordinate axis of the design coordinate axis is encoded so that the position in the chip formed on a semiconductor wafer can be recognized from design coordinate values are provided in horizontal and vertical specific areas of the uppermost layer at the time of visual observation or of a layer which is detectable at the time of observation by utilizing the peripheral region of the chip. The patterns are inputted into a computer at the time of observation, positional information on each coordinate axis is read out by decoding the encoded pattern, and the chip is positioned.</p> |
