Dennis E Mccarty

US Patent:

7230240, Jun 12, 2007

Filed:

Aug 31, 2004

Appl. No.:

10/931321

Inventors:

James Siebert - San Jose CA, US
Lokesh Johri - San Jose CA, US
Dennis McCarty - Fremont CA, US
Simon Voong - San Francisco CA, US
Madhumita Sengupta - Sunnyvale CA, US
Hui Wang - Newark CA, US

Assignee:

Credence Systems Corporation - Milpitas CA

International Classification:

H01J 37/147
H01J 37/256

US Classification:

250306, 250310, 250398, 250400

Abstract:

A charged particle beam system and scanning control method capable of imaging, and possibly editing, a device under test (DUT). The charged particle beam system contains a charged particle beam generation unit, such as a focused ion beam (FIB) column, which emits a charged particle beam onto the DUT. Also included is a scan controller arrangement implementing a finite state machine to control the application of the charged particle beam onto the DUT according to a plurality of scanning control parameters. The scanning control parameters may describe one or more scan regions that are rectangular in shape. Further, the parameters may describe one or more scan regions describing other shapes by way of a bit-map. Similarly, a method for controlling the scanning of a charged particle beam that involves obtaining a set of scanning control parameters, and then directing the charged particle beam as specified by the scanning control parameters by way of a finite state machine, is disclosed.