Inspection apparatus and reference image generation method

An inspection apparatus comprising:

• an imaging mechanism for imaging a sample;
• an image acquisition circuit configured to extract an outline from image data of the sample imaged by the imaging mechanism;
• an outline data generation circuit configured to generate data of an outline point of a pattern of design data;
• an area calculation circuit configured to calculate an area of a region not included in the pattern in a circle centered on the outline point;
• an estimation circuit configured to calculate a resizing amount of the outline point based on the area;
• a development circuit configured to generate a developed image from design data subjected to resizing process;
• and
• a reference image generation circuit configured to execute the resizing process of the design data based on the resizing amount and generate a reference image based on the developed image subjected to the resizing process.

A reference image generation method comprising:

• extracting an outline from image data obtained by imaging a sample;
• generating a developed image from design data;
• generating data of an outline point of a pattern of the developed image;
• calculating an area of a region not included in the pattern in a circle centered on the outline point;
• estimating a function based on the area;
• calculating a resizing amount of the outline point using the function;
• executing a resizing process of data of the outline point based on the resizing amount;
• and
• generating a reference image based on the data of the outline point subjected to the resizing process.

A reference image generation method comprising:

• extracting an outline from image data obtained by imaging a sample;
• generating data of an outline point of a pattern from design data;
• calculating an area of a region not included in the pattern in a circle centered on the outline point;
• estimating a function based on the area;
• calculating a resizing amount of the outline point using the function;
• executing a resizing process of the design data based on the resizing amount;
• generating a developed image from the design data subjected to the resizing process;
• and
• generating a reference image based on the developed image.