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Defect inspection in semiconductor processes has become a challenging task due to continuous shrink of device patterns (pitches less than 32 nm) as we move from node to node. Current state-of-the-art defect detection tools (optical/e-beam) have certain limitations as these tools are driven by some rule-based techniques for defect classification and detection. These limitations often lead to misclassification of defects, which leads to increased engineering time to correctly classify different defect patterns. In this paper, we propose a novel ensemble deep learning-based model to accurately classify, detect and localize different defect categories for aggressive pitches and thin resists (High NA applications).In particular, we train RetinaNet models using different ResNet, VGGNet architectures as backbone and present the comparison between the accuracies of these models and their performance analysis on SEM images with different types of defect patterns such as bridge, break and line collapses. Finally, we propose a preference-based ensemble strategy to combine the output predictions from different models in order to achieve better performance on classification and detection of defects. As CDSEM images inherently contain a significant level of noise, detailed feature information is often shadowed by noise. For certain resist profiles, the challenge is also to differentiate between a microbridge, footing, break, and zones of probable breaks. Therefore, we have applied an unsupervised machine learning model to denoise the SEM images to remove the False-Positive defects and optimize the effect of stochastic noise on structured pixels for better metrology and enhanced defect inspection. We repeated the defect inspection step with the same trained model and performed a comparative analysis for “robustness” and “accuracy” metric with conventional approach for both noisy/denoised image pair. The proposed ensemble method demonstrates improvement of the average precision metric (mAP) of the most difficult defect classes. In this work we have developed a novel robust supervised deep learning training scheme to accurately classify as well as localize different defect types in SEM images with high degree of accuracy. Our proposed approach demonstrates its effectiveness both quantitatively and qualitatively.
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