Linking the Stepper File to MEBES Images

Converting the stepper control file into boxes is a fairly straightforward task and such a display can be helpful in verifying a complex array. However there are times when a mask engineer would actually like to see the data inside of the "image" outlines.

The stepper file generally provides a list of images and the coordinates of the image on the reticle.

      Image  Name       Width    Height   OffsetX     OffsetY
        1    Product   71.3500  60.6820   0.00000     -0.57600 
        2    Test      33.0260   9.6640   0.00000    -40.63400 
        3    WLR       23.7450   9.5250  13.92500     39.41250 
        4    RPM7      12.8250  12.8250  -9.37250     41.07500 

The screen shot show above is from Artwork's MBSVU and the outlines and annotations have been added in red. In principal if one has access to the job deck and MEBES files that were used to produce this reticle (and most semiconductor shops do have access to this data) then MBSVU could be instructed to find the desired windows on the reticle and create a high resolution bitmap of that area.

The StepVu program could then "scale" these bitmaps and use the image/cell insertions to render an actual image of the wafer on screen. This would allow the mask engineer to more accurately visualize the results of the stepping.

Artwork is currently working on a new version of MBSVU that can take instructions from another program instead of just from the keyboard mouse. This will enable StepVU to talk to MBSVU and instruct it to open a job deck, transform the coordinates as needed (center on 0,0, scale and mirror) and then snap images of the various windows. In fact, MBSVU should be able to return a bitmap at any DPI requested.