Background: High-throughput three-dimensional metrology techniques for monitoring in-wafer uniformity (IWU) and in-cell uniformity (ICU) are critical for enhancing the yield of modern semiconductor manufacturing processes. However, owing to physical limitations, current metrology methods are not capable of enabling such measurements. For example, the optical critical dimension technique is not suitable for ICU measurement, because of its large spot size. In addition, it is excessively slow for IWU measurement. Aim: To overcome the aforementioned limitation, we demonstrate a line-scan hyperspectral imaging (LHSI) system, which combines spectroscopy and imaging techniques to provide sufficient information for spectral and spatial resolution, as well as high throughput. Approach: The proposed LHSI system has a 5-mu m spatial resolution together with 0.25-nm spectral resolution in the broad-wavelength region covering 350 to 1100 nm. Results: The system enables the simultaneous collection of massive amounts of spectral and spatial information with an extremely large field of view of 13 x 0.6 mm(2). Additionally, throughput improvement by a factor of 10(3) to 10(4) can be achieved when compared with standard ellipsometry and reflectometry tools. Conclusions: Owing to its high throughput and high spatial and spectral resolutions, the proposed LHSI system has considerable potential to be adopted for high-throughput ICU and IWU measurements of various semiconductor devices used in high-volume manufacturing.
