And noise based care areas

A non-transitory computer-readable medium, storing program instructions executable on a computer system for performing a computer-implemented method for setting up inspection of a specimen with design and noise based care areas, wherein the computer-implemented method comprises:

• generating a care area for a specimen based on a design for the specimen, wherein the care area defines a portion of the design containing a pattern of interest;
• determining one or more output attributes for multiple instances of the care area on the specimen, wherein the one or more output attributes are determined from output generated by an output acquisition subsystem for the multiple instances, wherein the output acquisition subsystem comprises at least an energy source and a detector, wherein the energy source is configured to generate energy that is directed to the specimen, and wherein the detector is configured to detect energy from the specimen and to generate the output responsive to the detected energy;
• separating the multiple instances of the care area on the specimen into different care area sub-groups based on the one or more output attributes such that the different care area sub-groups have statistically different values of the one or more output attributes;
• and
• selecting a parameter of an inspection recipe for the specimen based on the different care area sub-groups such that the different care area sub-groups having the statistically different values of the one or more output attributes are inspected with different values of the parameter when the inspection recipe is performed for the specimen.

A computer-implemented method for setting up inspection of a specimen with design and noise based care areas, comprising:

• generating a care area for a specimen based on a design for the specimen, wherein the care area defines a portion of the design containing a pattern of interest;
• determining one or more output attributes for multiple instances of the care area on the specimen, wherein the one or more output attributes are determined from output generated by an output acquisition subsystem for the multiple instances, wherein the output acquisition subsystem comprises at least an energy source and a detector, wherein the energy source is configured to generate energy that is directed to the specimen, and wherein the detector is configured to detect energy from the specimen and to generate the output responsive to the detected energy;
• separating the multiple instances of the care area on the specimen into different care area sub-groups based on the one or more output attributes such that the different care area sub-groups have statistically different values of the one or more output attributes;
• and
• selecting a parameter of an inspection recipe for the specimen based on the different care area sub-groups such that the different care area sub-groups having the statistically different values of the one or more output attributes are inspected with different values of the parameter when the inspection recipe is performed for the specimen, wherein said generating, determining, separating, and selecting are performed by one or more computer systems.