Multi mode inspection method and apparatus
AssigneeApplied Materials South East Asia Pte. Ltd.
InventorsDov Furman, Noam Dotan, Efraim Miklatzky
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Abstract
An inspection system for inspecting an object, the system comprising an illuminator including at least one pulsed light source, a detector assembly, and a relative motion provider operative to provide motion of the object relative to the detector assembly, along an axis of motion, the detector assembly comprising a plurality of 2-dimensional detector units whose active areas are arranged at intervals.
Claims12
An inspection system for inspecting an object, the system comprising:
- an illuminator including at least one pulsed light source, said illuminator being operative to selectively provide a plurality of modes of illumination according to an illumination schedule;
- a detector assembly comprising a plurality (n) of 2-dimensional detectors;
- and
- a relative motion provider operative to provide motion of the object relative to the detector assembly, along an axis of motion according to a motion schedule,
- wherein said motion schedule and said illumination schedule are selected to provide images of at least part of said object in at least two of said plurality of modes of illumination;
- wherein one of said plurality of 2-dimensional detectors images a first location on said object and another one of said plurality of 2-dimensional detectors images a second location on said object, such that said first location and said second location adjoin.
A system according to claim a 1 wherein said detector assembly comprises a single detector and wherein said plurality of 2-dimensional detectors comprise equal-sized portions of said single detector defined in a linear sequence along the axis of motion.
A method for inspecting an object, the method comprising:
- operating an illuminator, including at least one pulsed light source, and being operative to selectively provide a plurality of modes of illumination according to an illumination schedule;
- operating a detector assembly comprising a plurality of 2-dimensional detectors;
- and
- providing motion of the object relative to said detector assembly, along an axis of motion, in accordance with a motion schedule
- wherein said motion schedule and said illumination schedule arc selected to provide images of at least part of said object in at least two of said plurality of modes of illumination thereby inspecting said object;
- wherein said plurality of modes of illumination includes first and second modes of illumination and wherein at least one first threshold of value is used to filter candidate defects thereby, to generate a first defect list from images generated in the first mode of illumination, and at least one second threshold value is used to filter candidate defects, thereby to generate a second defect list from images generated in the second mode of illumination and wherein said at least one first threshold value used in at least a first image portion is determined at least partly by information characterizing said at least one first image portion as illuminated in said second mode of illumination and wherein said at least one second threshold value used in at least a second image portion is determined at least partly by information characterizing said at least one second image portion as illuminated in said first mode of illumination.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.