Highly-parallel manufacturing (HPM) use is growing rapidly and expanding markets already need more efficient and more traceable manufacturing processes. Existing markets demand advanced HPM-based products in new areas and with much higher manufacturing accuracy than previously sought.
The ongoing growth in HPM has created an urgent need for improved quality control, as current inspection metrology could not solve the conflicts between metre scale substrate size, high throughput, and sub-micrometre scale 3D feature dimensions. Crucially, metrology was poorly matched to SME innovator capital budgets and metrology skills.
Working with partners, the project has advanced the instrumentation state of the art for each of the key dimensional metrology objectives of the project. The workplan covered truly novel techniques and methods that have been adapted to and introduced into HPM markets.
As well as studying the feasibility of using a point-array sensing concept, NPL developed a departure detection sensor that simultaneously measures the critical dimension, orientation and displacement of a 1D diffraction grating. This technique is suitable for in-line metrology in a R2R manufacturing environment and it complements the DFM/NILT scatterometry work as an alternative method for detecting the departure of grating critical dimensions from nominal.
The project is designed to directly address the most challenging metrology barriers to creating product value in HPM today.
The project, therefore, benefited users through several direct pathways: