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US 5,699,447 AGranted
Two-phase optical inspection method and apparatus for defect detection
AssigneeOrbot Instruments Ltd.
InventorsDavid Alumot, Gad Neumann, Rivka Sherman, Ehud Tirosh
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and apparatus for inspecting the surface of articles, such as chips and wafers, for defects, includes a first phase of optically examining the complete surface of the article inspected by scanning its complete surface at a relatively high speed and with an optical beam of relatively small diameter, particularly a laser beam, and a second phase of optically examining with a relatively high spatial resolution only the suspected locations for the presence or absence of a defect therein.
Claims16
Inspection apparatus for inspecting the surface of articles for defects, comprising:
- a table for receiving the article to be inspected;
- first examining means overlying said table for examining in a first phase the complete surface of the article thereon by scanning said complete surface at a relatively high speed with an optical beam of small diameter, and for outputting information indicating suspected locations on the article surface having a high probability of a defect;
- storage means for storing the output of said first examining means;
- and second examining means overlying said table for examining, in a second phase and with a relatively high spatial resolution, only said suspected locations stored in said storage means, and for outputting information indicating the presence or absence of a defect in the suspected location.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.