An assembly for collimating broadband radiation, the assembly including: a convex refractive singlet lens having a first spherical surface for coupling the broadband radiation into the lens and a second spherical surface for coupling the broadband radiation out of the lens, wherein the first and second spherical surfaces have a common center; and a mount for holding the convex refractive singlet lens at a plurality of contact points having a centroid coinciding with the common center.

Multilayered product structures are formed on substrates by a combination of patterning steps, physical processing steps and chemical processing steps. An inspection apparatus illuminates a plurality of target structures and captures pupil images representing the angular distribution of radiation scattered by each target structure. The target structures have the same design but are formed at different locations on a substrate and/or on different substrates. Based on a comparison of the images the inspection apparatus infers the presence of process-induced stack variations between the different locations. In one application, the inspection apparatus separately measures overlay performance of the manufacturing process based on dark-field images, combined with previously determined calibration information. The calibration is adjusted for each target, depending on the stack variations inferred from the pupil images.

A semiconductor structure includes vertical conductive features disposed over a substrate, and horizontal conductive features disposed over the vertical conductive features. The horizontal conductive features include first and second conductive lines respectively electrically connected to the first and second vertical conductive features, a first conductive segment disposed between the first vertical conductive feature and the second conductive line, and a second conductive segment disposed between the first conductive line and the second vertical conductive feature. The first conductive segment is electrically isolated from the vertical conductive features. The second conductive segment is electrically isolated from the vertical conductive features.

A substrate inspection device for inspecting a substrate, includes: a setting part configured to define a group according to a basic state that is not dependent on a presence or absence of a defect in a substrate and set the defined group for each inspection target substrate; an inspection part configured to perform a defect inspection based on a captured image of the inspection target substrate and an inspection recipe corresponding to the defined group to which the inspection target substrate belongs and including a reference image; a recipe creation part configured to create the inspection recipe for each group; and a determination part configured to perform a determination as to whether a group-setting target substrate, for which the group is set by the setting part, belongs to the group defined by the setting part.

An apparatus and method to determine a property of a substrate by measuring, in the pupil plane of a high numerical aperture lens, an angle-resolved spectrum as a result of radiation being reflected off the substrate. The property may be angle and wavelength dependent and may include the intensity of TM- and TE-polarized radiation and their relative phase difference.

A system for optical imaging of defects on unpatterned wafers that includes an illumination module, relay optics, a segmented polarizer, and a detector. The illumination module is configured to produce a polarized light beam incident on a selectable area of an unpatterned wafer. The relay optics is configured to collect and guide, radiation scattered off the area, onto the polarizer. The detector is configured to sense scattered radiation passed through the polarizer. The polarizer includes at least four polarizer segments, such that (i) boundary lines, separating the polarizer segments, are curved outwards relative to a plane, perpendicular to the segmented polarizer, unless the boundary line is on the perpendicular plane, and (ii) when the area comprises a typical defect, a signal-to-noise ratio of scattered radiation, passed through the polarizer segments, is increased as compared to when utilizing a linear polarizer.

A high harmonic radiation source and associated method of generating high harmonic radiation is disclosed. The high harmonic radiation source is configured to condition a gas medium by irradiating the gas medium with a pre-pulse of radiation, thereby generating a plasma comprising a pre-pulse plasma distribution; and irradiate the gas medium with a main pulse of radiation to generate said high harmonic radiation. The conditioning step is such that the plasma comprising a pre-pulse plasma distribution acts to configure a wavefront of said main pulse to improve one or both of: the efficiency of the high harmonic generation process and the beam quality of the high harmonic radiation. The high harmonic radiation source further may comprise a beam shaping device configured to shape said customized pre-pulse prior to said conditioning.

Methods and systems for improving a measurement recipe describing a sequence of measurements employed to characterize semiconductor structures are described herein. A measurement recipe is repeatedly updated before a queue of measurements defined by the previous measurement recipe is fully executed. In some examples, an improved measurement recipe identifies a minimum set of measurement options that increases wafer throughput while meeting measurement uncertainty requirements. In some examples, measurement recipe optimization is controlled to trade off measurement robustness and measurement time. This enables flexibility in the case of outliers and process excursions. In some examples, measurement recipe optimization is controlled to minimize any combination of measurement uncertainty, measurement time, move time, and target dose. In some examples, a measurement recipe is updated while measurement data is being collected. In some examples, a measurement recipe is updated at a site while data is collected at another site.

An image analysis method for identifying features in an image of a part of an array of features formed by a multi-step process, the method comprising: analyzing variations in features visible in the image; and associating features of the image with steps of the multi-step process based at least in part on results of the analyzing.

A substrate inspection method in a substrate treatment system including a plurality of treatment apparatuses each performing a predetermined treatment on a substrate, includes: imaging a surface of a substrate before being treated in the treatment apparatuses to acquire a first substrate image; extracting a predetermined feature amount from the first substrate image; selecting an inspection recipe corresponding to the feature amount extracted from the first substrate image, from a storage unit in which a plurality of inspection recipes each set corresponding to the feature amount in a different range are stored; imaging the surface of the substrate after being treated in the treatment apparatuses to acquire a second substrate image; and determining presence or absence of a defect of the substrate, based on the selected inspection recipe and the second substrate image.