Pattern inspection apparatus and pattern inspection method

A pattern inspection apparatus comprising:

• an optical image acquisition mechanism configured to acquire optical image data of a plurality of regions from a substrate where a plurality of figure patterns are formed;
• a plurality of comparison circuits each configured to perform one of die-to-die inspection processing which compares the optical image data with each other and die-to-database inspection processing which compares the optical image data with reference image data generated from design pattern data, the plurality of comparison circuits being capable of parallel processing;
• and
• an inspection circuit configured, for each region of the plurality of regions, to individually output the optical image data of a region concerned to comparison circuits, a number of the comparison circuits variably set for the each region, in the plurality of comparison circuits, and to control each comparison circuit, serving as an output destination of the optical image data in the plurality of comparison circuits, to perform one of the die-to-die inspection processing and the die-to-database inspection processing.