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US 8,013,989 B2Granted
Defects inspecting apparatus and defects inspecting method
AssigneeHitachi High-Technologies Corporation
InventorsSachio Uto, Minori Noguchi, Hidetoshi Nishiyama, Yoshimasa Ohshima, Akira Hamamatsu, Takahiro Jingu, Toshihiko Nakata, Masahiro Watanabe
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An inspecting apparatus and method including first and second illuminating units for illuminating a surface of a specimen to be inspected with different incident angles and first and second detecting optical units arranged at different elevation angle directions to the surface of the specimen for detecting images of the specimen illuminated by the first and second illuminating units.
Claims16
A defect inspecting apparatus, comprising:
- a stage configured to mount a specimen to be inspected and configured to be movable in at least one direction;
- an illuminating unit configured to illuminate a surface of the specimen with a slit-like shaped polarized laser beam split so as to be with at least three inclined angles in relation to the surface of the specimen;
- a detecting optical unit installed at an inclined angle direction in relation to the surface of the specimen, and having image-forming optics and at least one aligned light receiving element to detect a first image of the specimen illuminated by the illuminating unit;
- a processor configured to process images detected by the at least one aligned light receiving element, in order to detect a defect on the specimen if a defect exists.
1 more element
A defect inspecting apparatus, comprising:
- a stage configured to mount a specimen to be inspected and configured to be movable in at least in one direction;
- an illuminating optical unit having:
- a first illuminator configured to illuminate a surface of the specimen with a first slit-like shaped polarized laser beam disposed at a first inclined angle in relation to the surface of the specimen,
- a second illuminator configured to illuminate the surface of the specimen with a second slit-like shaped polarized laser beam disposed at a second inclined angle in relation to the surface of the specimen, with the second inclined angle being greater than the first inclined angle, and
- a third illuminator configured to illuminate the surface of the specimen with a third slit-like shaped polarized laser beam disposed at a third inclined angle in relation to the surface of the specimen, with the third inclined angle being greater than the second inclined angle;
- a detecting optical unit having aligned light-receiving elements disposed in a direction of an inclined angle in relation to the surface of the specimen to detect light from the specimen caused by the illuminations of the illuminating optical unit;
- and
- a processor configured to process images detected by the aligned light-receiving elements to detect a defect on the specimen if a defect exists, and classifies the detected defect into one of plural defect categories;
- wherein the first illuminator of the illuminating optical unit illuminates the specimen with the first slit-like shaped polarized laser beam in a longitudinal direction of the first slit-like shaped polarized laser beam, and the first illuminator and the second illuminator illuminate the specimen at different times.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.