Automated rough line-edge estimation from SEM images using deep convolutional neural networks

Narendra Chaudhary; Serap A. Savari; S. S. Yeddulapalli

doi:10.1117/12.2501723

3 October 2018 Automated rough line-edge estimation from SEM images using deep convolutional neural networks

Narendra Chaudhary, Serap A. Savari, S. S. Yeddulapalli

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 10810, Photomask Technology 2018; 108101L (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2501723
Event: SPIE Photomask Technology + Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography, 2018, Monterey, California, United States

Abstract

We propose a deep convolutional neural network named EDGENet to estimate rough line edge positions in low-dose scanning electron microscope (SEM) images corrupted by Poisson noise, Gaussian blur, edge effects and other instrument errors and apply our approach to the estimation of line edge roughness (LER) and line width roughness (LWR). Our method uses a supervised learning dataset of 100800 input-output pairs of simulated noisy SEM rough line images with true edge positions. The edges were constructed by the Thorsos method and have an underlying Palasantzas spectral model. The simulated SEM images were created using the ARTIMAGEN library developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The convolutional neural network EDGENet consists of 17 convolutional, 16 batch-normalization layers and 16 dropout layers and offers excellent LER and LWR estimation as well as roughness spectrum estimation.

Citation Download Citation

Narendra Chaudhary, Serap A. Savari, and S. S. Yeddulapalli "Automated rough line-edge estimation from SEM images using deep convolutional neural networks", Proc. SPIE 10810, Photomask Technology 2018, 108101L (3 October 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2501723

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