Patent ID: 6905966

Claim:
A method for estimating remaining film thickness distribution of a surface protection film that remains on each activation region after chemical mechanical polishing when a semiconductor substrate having the surface protection film is etched using a patterning mask that has a mask pattern for producing an activation region to form a device isolation trench so as to create the activation region, an insulating film is provided over the activation region to fill the device isolation trench, and chemical mechanical polishing is performed on the semiconductor substrate with the insulating film provided thereon to form a device separating portion, the patterning mask comprising a plurality of one-chip mask regions arranged in matrix, and each of the one-chip mask regions comprising a same number of the mask patterns in a same layout, the method for estimating remaining film thickness distribution comprising: generating a reduced region on each of the mask patterns by removing a predetermined width from the mask pattern along an edge of the mask pattern; segmentalizing the one-chip mask region into predetermined segmentalized regions to generate segmentalized regions and to acquire an area ratio of all reduced regions with respect to each of the segmentalized regions, all of the reduced regions occupying a region that includes the segmentalized region at a fixed position and has a same size and shape as those of the one-chip mask region; and acquiring the remaining film thickness distribution in the one-chip mask region based on the area ratio.