Patent ID: 7479396

Claim:
A method for analyzing a patterned photoresist layer comprising: providing a system comprising: an apparatus that induces a variation of a dimension of a patterned photoresist layer when measuring the dimension; and a computer programmed with an algorithm correlating with a patterned photoresist layer pattern design used to determine the dimension when the dimension is measured using the apparatus that induces the variation of the dimension, wherein said variation is independent of the dimension; measuring, within the system, a structure comprising the patterned photoresist layer pattern design, said pattern design structure comprising a multiplicity of lines separated by a multiplicity of spaces, where at least one of the multiplicity of lines and the multiplicity of spaces has a linear dimensional progression; and executing, at said computer, the algoritbm to determine the dimension, said algorithm is a linear regression algorithm: Wn=V Kn−S where: S=actual uniform shrinkage to be determined; V=actual linewidth to be determined; Wn=measured linewidth for patterned photoresist layer Kn; and Kn=line number; and n is an integer number greater or equal to 1.