Patent ID: 6884984

Claim:
A system to control the manufacture of integrated circuits using (1) a production-type mask, which includes features having a line width that includes a critical dimension, and (2) a lithographic integrated circuit manufacturing system having (i) an optical system to produce an image of the production-type mask on a wafer plane, and (ii) platform moveable between a plurality of discrete locations relative to the image, the system comprising: an image sensor unit capable of being disposed on the moveable platform, the image sensor unit includes a sensor array capable of being located in the wafer plane, wherein the sensor array includes a plurality of sensor cells to sample light of a predetermined wavelength that is incident thereon, and wherein at each discrete location of the plurality of discrete locations of the platform the sensor cells sample the intensity of light; and a processing unit, coupled to the image sensor unit, to measure the critical dimension of the features using tile data which is representative of the intensity of light sampled by a plurality of sensor cells at a plurality of discrete locations of the platform and, in response to the measured critical dimension, to control at least one operating parameter of the lithographic integrated circuit manufacturing system.