Provided is a fine structure determination method capable of easily determining tilt angles of columnar scattering bodies that are long in a thickness direction, and provided are an analysis apparatus and an analysis program thereof. There is provided an analysis method for a fine structure of a plate-shaped sample formed to have columnar scattering bodies that are long in a thickness direction and periodically arranged, comprising the steps of preparing scattering intensity data from the plate-shaped sample, that is generated via transmission of X-rays; and determining tilt angles of the scattering bodies in the plate-shaped sample with respect to a reference rotation position at which a surface of the plate-shaped sample is perpendicular to an incident direction of the X-rays, based on the prepared scattering intensity data.

A method, a non-transitory computer readable medium and a system for focusing an electron beam. The method may include focusing the electron beam on at least one evaluated area of a wafer, based on a height parameter of each one of the at least one evaluated area. The wafer includes a transparent substrate. The height parameter of each one of the at least one evaluated area is determined based on detection signals generated as a result of an illumination of one or more height-measured areas of the wafer with a beam of photons. The illumination occurs while one or more supported areas of the wafer contact one or more supporting elements of a chuck, and while each one of the one or more height-measured areas are spaced apart from the chuck by a distance that exceeds a depth of field of the optics related to the beam of photons.

There is provided a method, a non-transitory computer readable medium, and a system for measuring a pattern. The method can include (a) obtaining an electron image of an area of a sample, the area comprises the pattern, the electron image comprises multiple lines; each line comprises information obtained by moving an electron beam over a scan line; (b) generating a converted image by applying a noise reduction kernel on the electron image, the noise reduction kernel has a width that represents a number of consecutive lines of the electron image; the width is determined based on relationships between analysis results obtained when using noise reduction kernels of different widths; and (c) analyzing the converted image to provide a pattern measurement.

A sequential X-ray fluorescence spectrometer according to the present invention includes a total analysis time display unit configured to measure, for each kind of analytical sample, a standard sample which contains a component at a known content as a standard value to determine a measured intensity of each measurement line corresponding to the component. The total analysis time display unit is further configured to calculate, for each component, a counting time which gives a specified analytical precision by using the standard value and the measured intensity and to calculate a total counting time as a sum of the counting times of respective components. The total analysis time display unit is configured to calculate a total analysis time as a sum of the total counting time and a total non-counting time and to output the calculated total analysis time and the calculated counting times of the respective components.

A method for inspecting a membrane electrode structure (1) which includes a first step in which detection medium capable of detecting elements of a first electrode catalyst layer (12) and a second electrode catalyst layer (22) and an element of a metal foreign matter (40) is sent along a thickness direction from the side of a first electrode layer (10) to a second electrode layer (20) side to obtain a thickness direction profile of a detection signal, and a second step in which an analysis unit identifies a thickness direction position of the metal foreign matter (40), from intensity of the detection signal in the thickness direction profile, and in which the analysis unit identifies thickness direction positions of the first and second electrode catalyst layer (12)(22), or a thickness direction position of an electrolyte membrane (30), from the intensity of the detection signal in the thickness direction profile.

A method for scanning a sample by a charged particle beam tool is provided. The method includes providing the sample having a scanning area including a plurality of unit areas, scanning a unit area of the plurality of unit areas, blanking a next unit area of the plurality of unit areas adjacent to the scanned unit area, and performing the scanning and the blanking the plurality of unit areas until all of the unit areas are scanned.

There is provided a method, a non-transitory computer readable medium, and a system for measuring a pattern. The method can include (a) obtaining an electron image of an area of a sample, the area comprises the pattern, the electron image comprises multiple lines; each line comprises information obtained by moving an electron beam over a scan line; (b) generating a converted image by applying a noise reduction kernel on the electron image, the noise reduction kernel has a width that represents a number of consecutive lines of the electron image; the width is determined based on relationships between analysis results obtained when using noise reduction kernels of different widths; and (c) analyzing the converted image to provide a pattern measurement.

An electron microscope apparatus includes a detection unit that detects reflected electrons reflected from a sample when the sample is irradiated with primary electrons emitted by a primary electron generation unit (electron gun), an image generation unit that generates an image of a surface of the sample with the reflected electrons based on output from the detection unit, and a processing unit that generates a differential waveform signal of the image generated by the image generation unit, processes the image by using information of the differential waveform signal, and measures a dimension of a pattern formed on the sample.

Disclosed are a method, an apparatus, and a system for inspecting a ball grid array-type semiconductor chip package. A first embodiment of the present invention provides an apparatus for inspecting a semiconductor chip package, the apparatus comprising: a first image acquisition unit for acquiring a reference image using a three-dimensional image of a semiconductor chip serving as a reference, the reference image being obtained by removing a region of interest from the three-dimensional image; a second image acquisition unit for acquiring a two-dimensional image of a semiconductor chip to be inspected; and an image processing unit for deriving an image of a region of interest of the semiconductor chip to be inspected, from the difference between the reference image and the two-dimensional image.

Provided herein are methods and apparatus for characterizing high aspect ratio (HAR) structures of fabricated or partially fabricated semiconductor devices. The methods involve using small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) to determine average parameters of an array of HAR structures. In some implementations, SAXS is used to analyze symmetry of HAR structures in a sample and may be referred to as tilted structural symmetry analysis-SAXS (TSSA-SAXS) or TSSA. Analysis of parameters such as tilt, sidewall angle, bowing, and the presence of multiple tilts in HAR structures may be performed.