Patent ID: 8908175

Claim:
A scatterometry apparatus for enabling flexible modes of operation, the apparatus comprising in operative combination: an illumination source configured for emitting an illumination beam; a first spatial light modulator configured for receiving the illumination beam and generating a modulated illumination beam; at least one high numerical aperture objective lens configured for receiving both the modulated illumination beam and light reflected by a scatterometry target; a second spatial light modulator configured for receiving light reflected by the scatterometry target that is emitted by the at least one high numerical aperture objective lens; a control element electrically coupled with at least one of the first spatial light modulator and the second spatial light modulator; a detector including a spectrometer configured for generating scatterometry data from light reflected by the scatterometry target and emitted by the second spatial light modulator; and a computing device configured for processing the scatterometry data to compute at least one of: one or more thin film metrology characteristics of the scatterometry target, one or more critical dimension metrology characteristics of the scatterometry target, or one or more scatterometry overlay metrology characteristics of the scatterometry target.