The Winning Streak Advanced Darkfield Inspection for 65nm Design Rules and Below

order to maintain sensitivity to critical defects. Shrinking the spot size reduces the throughput, diminishing one of the key benefits of these inspectors. In addition, single scanning spot AOD/PMT systems have a maximum possible data rate of ~300Mpps, limiting the extendibility of these platforms to future semiconductor nodes. Introducing multiple spots on an AOD-scanning tool increases the throughput linearly with the number of spots, assuming each spot maintains sufficient photon density. However, multiple spots also increase the complexity of the system significantly, leading to potential problems with reliability and matching.