Wafer surface observing method and apparatus
AssigneeHitachi High-Technologies Corporation
InventorsHiroshi Higashi, Tetsuya Watanabe, Kenji Aiko
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A wafer surface observing apparatus for inspecting a peripheral portion of an object has (A) a lens system and a CCD camera for taking images of the peripheral portion of the object, (B) storage for storing image data about the taken images, and (C) display for displaying the image data stored in the storage device. In particular, the present apparatus can have functions of rotating the object placed on a prealignment portion, recording images of one full outer periphery of an end portion of the object by the lens system and CCD camera into the location where the orientation flat portions or notched portions of the object are placed in position, accepting the images into the storage device, and displaying the images on a CRT.
Claims12
An inspection system comprising:
- a pre-alignment unit which aligns a position of an object to be inspected;
- an edge observing unit which is arranged in the pre-alignment unit and acquires an image of an edge of the object;
- a surface inspection unit which detects a defect located inside and away from the edge of the object;
- and
- a processing unit which relates the image obtained with the edge observing unit to a defect map obtained with the surface inspection unit.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.