Substrate surface inspecting apparatus and substrate surface inspecting method

A substrate surface inspection apparatus capturing an image of a surface of a substrate and inspecting said substrate based on the obtained image, said substrate surface inspection apparatus having:

• a support mechanism provided with a plurality of first supports and a plurality of second supports able to support edges of said substrate and release the same,
• an imaging unit arranged facing the surface of said substrate, said substrate being supported by either said plurality of first supports or said plurality of second supports in said support mechanism,
• a scan movement mechanism making said imaging unit and said support mechanism move relative to each other so that said imaging unit scans and captures an image of the surface of said substrate in a predetermined scan direction,
• shift movement mechanism making said imaging unit and said support mechanism relatively move in a direction traversing said scan direction between a first relative position at one end of the move and a second relative position at the other end of the move;
• said imaging unit able to capture,
• when said imaging unit and said support mechanism are at said first relative position, a first image from a predetermined region at one side of said substrate, said first image defining a first image capturing range, and
• when said imaging unit and said support mechanism are at said second relative position, a second image from a predetermined region at the other side of said substrate, said second image defining a second image capturing range;
• said first and second image capturing range including a common image capturing range and said common image capturing range defined as a predetermined range of said substrate in a direction perpendicular to said scan direction;
• wherein at least one of said plurality of first supports in said support mechanism is positioned outside the first image capturing range and at least another one of said plurality of first supports in said support mechanism is positioned inside said common image capturing range;
• wherein at least one of said plurality of second supports in said support mechanism is positioned outside the second image capturing range and at least another one of said plurality of second supports in said support mechanism is positioned inside said common image capturing range;
• a first mechanism for releasing said plurality of first supports from supporting edges of said substrate in the step of capturing the second image wherein said substrate is supported by said plurality of second supports, and
• a second mechanism for releasing said plurality of second supports from supporting edges of said substrate in the step of capturing the first image wherein said substrate is supported by said plurality of first supports.