Method and apparatus for inspecting pattern defects
AssigneeHitachi High-Technologies Corporation
InventorsKaoru Sakai, Shunji Maeda, Takafumi Okabe
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Abstract
An apparatus for inspecting pattern defects, the apparatus including: an image acquisition unit which acquires an image of a specimen and stores the acquired image in an image memory; a defect candidate extraction unit which performs a defect candidate extraction process by using the acquired image, which is read from the image memory; and a defect detection unit which performs a defect detection process based on a partial image containing a defect candidate that is extracted by the defect candidate extraction unit, wherein the defect detection process performed by the defect detection unit is performed asynchronously with an image acquisition process that is performed by the image acquisition unit.
Claims10
An apparatus for inspecting pattern defects, the apparatus comprising:
- an image acquisition unit which acquires an image of a specimen and stores the acquired image in an image memory;
- a defect candidate extraction unit which performs a defect candidate extraction process by using the acquired image, which is read from the image memory;
- and
- a defect detection unit which performs a defect detection process based on a partial image containing a defect candidate that is extracted by the defect candidate extraction unit,
- wherein the defect detection process performed by the defect detection unit is performed asynchronously with an image acquisition process that is performed by the image acquisition unit.
An apparatus for inspecting pattern defects, the apparatus comprising:
- an image acquisition unit which acquires an image of a specimen and stores the acquired image in an image memory;
- a defect candidate extraction unit which performs a defect candidate extraction process by using the acquired image, which is read from the image memory;
- and
- a defect detection unit which performs a defect detection process based on a partial image containing a defect candidate that is extracted by the defect candidate extraction unit,
- wherein the defect detection process performed by the defect candidate extraction unit and the defect detection unit are performed off-line asynchronously with an image acquisition process that is performed by the image acquisition unit.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.