Patent ID: 8170833
Filing Date: 2012-05-01
Classification: G01N

Abstract:
1. A method for operating a treatment system, comprising: collecting metrology data from one or more substrates treated by a treatment process in said treatment system; setting objectives for an analysis of said treatment process and said metrology data; selecting one or more termination criteria for performing said analysis; determining one or more essential variables from said metrology data using multivariate analysis; validating said one or more essential variables by computing one or more statistics associated with the explanation of said metrology data by said one or more essential variables; determining whether said one or more termination criteria is achieved; adjusting said one or more termination criteria, or said analysis objectives, or said multivariate analysis, or any combination of two or more thereof if said one or more termination criteria are not achieved; identifying at least one of said one or more essential variables using one or more pattern recognition techniques; utilizing said at least one of said one or more essential variables to characterize said treatment process, or adjust said treatment process, or monitor said treatment process, or control said treatment process, or detect a fault in said treatment process, or a combination of two or more thereof; and performing an accuracy check, or repeatability check, or both on said utilization of said at least one of said one or more essential variables, wherein said collecting said metrology data comprises collecting optical metrology data, and wherein said collecting said optical metrology data comprises collecting an optical signal resulting from illuminating one or more structures on said one or more substrates with an incident optical signal.