Patent ID: 11966170
Assignee: TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY LTD.
Field: Optics (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G  H | IPC G  H

Claim 0:
1. A method comprising:
receiving a wafer;
measuring a surface topography of the wafer;
calculating a topographical variation based on the surface topography measurement;
performing a single-zone alignment compensation when the topographical variation is less than a predetermined value, or performing a multi-zone alignment compensation when the topographical variation is greater than the predetermined value; and
performing a wafer alignment according to the single-zone alignment compensation or the multi-zone alignment compensation,, wherein the multi-zone alignment compensation further comprises:
defining a plurality of zones over the wafer, wherein each zone includes a plurality of fields; and
performing the multi-zone alignment compensation for each of the plurality of zones by a controller according to an equation (1),
wherein the equation (1) is:

dXm=αm*Z1+βm*Z2+γm*Z3+ . . . ωm*Zn  (1), wherein n is a positive integer greater than 1, m indicates that the zone undergoes the multi-zone alignment compensation and m is a positive integer less than or equal to n, dXm indicates the compensation value to be adjusted during the wafer alignment, Z1 to Zn indicate a first zone to an Nth zone of the plurality of zones, αm indicates a weighting for the fields in the first zone during performing of the multi-zone alignment compensation for an mth zone, βm indicates a weighting for the fields in the second zone during performing of the multi-zone alignment compensation for the mth zone, γm indicates a weighting for the fields in the third zone during performing of the multi-zone alignment compensation for the mth zone, and ωm indicates a weighting for the fields in the Nth zone during performing of the multi-zone alignment compensation for the mth zone.