Today KLA-Tencor Corporation (NASDAQ:KLAC), the world’s leading supplier of process control and yield management solutions for the semiconductor and related industries, announced XP, a new upgrade package for 28xx broadband brightfield inspection systems. The XP package is the first commercially available product to give an inspection system access to standard IC design layout files — the instructions that enable mask shops to pattern the mask. With access to this information, the inspection system can use knowledge of the defect’s location within the circuit to better estimate its probability of affecting device yield. In addition, XP can use the results of the design-aware wafer inspection to identify features on the mask that may be particularly sensitive to process variations during printing. These and other features of the XP upgrade package are designed to improve the sensitivity and productivity of existing 28xx inspectors and raise the information content of defect results, helping to accelerate identification and resolution of defect issues.

“As chip complexity and price pressure increase in our consumer-driven markets, our customers are asking for tools to facilitate root-cause defect analysis, improve their productivity, and effect faster, more efficient ramps,” remarked Mike Kirk, Ph.D., vice president and general manager of KLA-Tencor’s Wafer Inspection Group. “Today our leading-edge fabs have to cope with advanced lithography techniques that enable 193nm lithography to print features with dimensions nearly one-tenth the illumination wavelength, dimensions that can now be measured in countable atoms. In this environment, even the smallest defect on a wafer or marginal pattern on a mask can have an enormous yield impact. Our new XP package represents a major step forward in addressing our customers’ need to optimize defect capture and identify systematic and other yield-relevant defects from a sea of irrelevant or ‘nuisance’ defects.