Automatic defect detection from SEM images of wafers using component tree

In this paper, we propose a novel defect detection method using component tree representations of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images. The component tree contains rich information about the topological structure of images such as the stiffness of intensity changes, area, and volume of the lobes. This information can be used effectively in detecting suspicious defect areas. A quasi-linear algorithm is available for constructing the component tree and computing these attributes. In this paper, we modify the original component tree algorithm to be suitable for our defect detection application. First, we exclude pixels that are near the ground level during the initial stage of component tree construction. Next, we detect significant lobes based on multiple attributes and edge information. Our experiments performed with actual SEM wafer images show promising results. For a 1000 × 1000 image, the proposed algorithm performed the whole process in 1.36 seconds.