Mechanisms for making and inspecting reticles

A method of processing a sample comprising:

• providing an electronic representation of a layout pattern for the sample to a sample processing system, the electronic representation having a flagged critical region that indicates to the sample processing system that an associated critical region of the sample requires a special production technique;
• and
• producing a sample based on the electronic representation, wherein the critical region of the sample associated with the flagged critical region of the electronic representation is produced via the special production technique and other regions of the sample are produced via a normal production technique,
• wherein the special production technique differs from the normal production technique.

A method of inspecting a sample having a special analysis region associated with a critical region and a normal analysis region associated with a normal region, the method comprising:

• providing an electronic representation of the sample, the representation having a normal region corresponding to the normal analysis region of the sample and a flagged critical region corresponding to the special analysis region of the sample;
• providing a test image of the sample;
• providing a baseline representation containing an expected pattern of the test image;
• and
• comparing the test image to the baseline representation such that (i) regions of the test image and the baseline representation corresponding to the normal analysis region of the sample are compared via a normal analysis and (ii) regions of the test image and the baseline representation corresponding to the special analysis region of the sample are compared via a special analysis,
• wherein the special analysis differs from the normal analysis.

A method of inspecting a sample having a sample pattern, the method comprising:

• providing a representation of the sample pattern, the representation having a plurality of flagged regions and a plurality of unflagged regions, wherein each flagged and unflagged region corresponds to a specific region of the sample pattern;
• performing a process on the sample so as to form at least a portion of the pattern on the sample;
• and
• inspecting the regions of the formed sample pattern for defects thereon, wherein only the regions of the sample pattern which correspond to flagged regions of the representation are inspected while the regions of the sample pattern which correspond to unflagged regions of the representation are deemed to be permissible defect areas and are not inspected.