Inspection apparatus for inspecting patterns of a substrate
First Claim
1. A pattern inspection apparatus comprising:
- irradiating means for irradiating light, a laser beam, or a charged particle beam onto a substrate on which patterns have been formed;
detecting means for detecting a signal which is generated from said substrate by said irradiation;
image data storing means for forming an image from the signal detected by said detecting means and storing image data;
comparing condition designating means for designating information of an inspection area on said substrate and information of a comparing period in association with each other;
comparing means for comparing the image data stored in said image data storing means with another image data corresponding to the comparing period designated for the inspection area to which the image data belongs in accordance with the information of the inspection area and the information of the comparing period designated by said comparing condition designating means; and
discriminating means for discriminating a defect on the patterns from a comparison result of said comparing means.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A pattern inspection apparatus has a setting unit of a plurality of cell areas A and B of different cell comparison pitches and inspects the plurality of cell areas of the different cell comparison pitches in accordance with settings of the setting unit. As information to read out image data for an inspection image and a reference image from an image memory, in addition to position information of a defective image, identification information showing either a cell comparison or a die comparison and relative position information of the reference image can be set. The apparatus also has a unit for setting a plurality of inspection threshold values every inspection area and inspects a plurality of inspection areas by the plurality of inspection threshold values.
26 Citations
17 Claims
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1. A pattern inspection apparatus comprising:
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irradiating means for irradiating light, a laser beam, or a charged particle beam onto a substrate on which patterns have been formed;
detecting means for detecting a signal which is generated from said substrate by said irradiation;
image data storing means for forming an image from the signal detected by said detecting means and storing image data;
comparing condition designating means for designating information of an inspection area on said substrate and information of a comparing period in association with each other;
comparing means for comparing the image data stored in said image data storing means with another image data corresponding to the comparing period designated for the inspection area to which the image data belongs in accordance with the information of the inspection area and the information of the comparing period designated by said comparing condition designating means; and
discriminating means for discriminating a defect on the patterns from a comparison result of said comparing means. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. A pattern inspection apparatus comprising:
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an image memory for storing image data obtained by photographing a semiconductor wafer; and
a memory controller for extracting an inspection image and a reference image for comparison from said image memory and transferring them to an image processing unit, wherein said memory controller receives a head address of a defective image in said image memory and reference image information showing a relative position of the reference image for said defective image, extracts said inspection image from said image memory by using said received head address of the defective image, and extracts said reference image from said image memory by using said received head address of the defective image and the reference image information. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9)
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10. A pattern inspection apparatus comprising:
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an image memory for storing image data obtained by photographing a semiconductor wafer on which a plurality of chips have been formed;
a memory controller for extracting an inspection image and a reference image for comparison from said image memory and transferring them to an image processing unit; and
a whole control unit for holding information regarding an obtaining method of the reference image in each area in said chip, forming reference image information showing the obtaining method of the reference image for a defective image on the basis of a position of a detected defect in said chip, and outputting a head address of the defective image in said image memory and said reference image information to said memory controller, wherein said memory controller extracts said inspection image from said image memory by using the head address of said defective image received from said whole control unit and extracts said reference image from said image memory by using the head address of said defective image and the reference image information. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12)
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13. A pattern inspection apparatus comprising:
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irradiating means for irradiating light, a laser beam, or a charged particle beam onto a substrate on which patterns have been formed;
detecting means for detecting a signal which is generated from said substrate by said irradiation;
image data storing means for forming an image from the signal detected by said detecting means and storing image data;
inspecting condition setting means for setting information of an inspection area on said substrate and information of an inspection threshold value as a defect discriminating condition in association with each other;
comparing means for comparing the image data stored in said image data storing means with another corresponding image data in accordance with the information of the inspection area and the information of the inspection threshold value set by said inspecting condition setting means; and
discriminating means for discriminating a defect on the patterns from a comparison result of said comparing means. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17)
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Specification