| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|
| 20080225286 | Method And Apparatus For Detecting Defects - A defect inspection method and apparatus that can easily and quickly determine, from among a plurality of inspection conditions, a condition that allows for an inspection with high sensitivity. The inspection apparatus has a variety of optical functions to cover a variety of kinds of defects to be inspected (shape, material, nearby pattern, etc.). For each optical function, grayscale depths of defects that the operator wants detected and of pseudo defects that he or she wants undetected are accumulated for future use, so that conditions conducive to a higher sensitivity and a lower pseudo defect detection rate can be selected efficiently. Conditions that can be selected for optical systems include a bright-field illumination, a dark-field illumination and a bright-/dark-field composite illumination, illumination wavelength bands, polarization filters and spatial filters. | 09-18-2008 |
| 20090059216 | DEFECT INSPECTION METHOD AND DEFECT INSPECTION APPARATUS - A defect inspection apparatus comprises: a stage which scans a sample in a horizontal plane; an illumination optical system which illuminates light at an oblique angle with respect to a normal of a sample surface, and illuminates light in a linear form on the sample at an angle inclined to a direction perpendicular to the scanning direction of the stage; a front scattered light detection optical system which is disposed in the same orientation as the scanning direction, positioned at an elevation angle where a specular reflection light from a pattern parallel to the scanning direction is not spatially detected, and detects scattered light from a region illuminated in the linear form; an image sensor detecting an image formed by the front scattered light detection optical system; and an image processing unit performing a comparison operation of the image detected by the image sensor, thereby determining a defect candidate. | 03-05-2009 |
| 20090141269 | Defect Inspection Method And System - An inspection system includes: a facility that uses wide-band illumination light having different wavelengths and single-wavelength light to perform dark-field illumination on an object of inspection, which has the surface thereof coated with a transparent film, in a plurality of illuminating directions at a plurality of illuminating angles; a facility that detects light reflected or scattered from repetitive patterns and light reflected or scattered from non-repetitive patterns with the wavelengths thereof separated from each other; a facility that efficiently detects light reflected or scattered from a foreign matter or defect in the repetitive patterns or non-repetitive patterns or a foreign matter or defect on the surface of the transparent film; and a facility that removes light, which is diffracted by the repetitive patterns, from a diffracted light image of actual patterns or design data representing patterns. Consequently, a more microscopic defect can be detected stably. | 06-04-2009 |
| 20090213215 | DEFECT INSPECTION APPARATUS AND METHOD - In a defect inspection apparatus for inspecting a wafer provided with a circuit pattern for defects, the illuminating direction of illuminating light rays is selectively determined such that an area containing a defect that scatters light of high intensity coincides with the aperture of a dark-field detecting system, and such that regularly reflected light regularly reflected by a pattern, which is noise to defect detection, does not coincide with the aperture of the dark field detecting system. | 08-27-2009 |
| 20090257647 | Method and Apparatus for Inspecting Defects - A two-dimensional sensor is installed inclining at a predetermined angle to a moving direction of a stage on which an object to be inspected is mounted and, in synchronism with the movement of the stage, a picked up image is rearranged so that there can be obtained an image in high-density sampling with a picture-element size or less of the two-dimensional sensor with respect to a wafer. Thus, interpolation calculation during position alignment becomes unnecessary, and size calculation and classification of a defect can be performed with high accuracy. | 10-15-2009 |
| 20090279079 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR INSPECTING DEFECTS - To provide a defect inspection apparatus for inspecting defects of a specimen without lowering resolution of a lens, without depending on a polarization characteristic of a defect scattered light, and with high detection sensitivity that is realized by the following. A detection optical path is branched by at least one of spectral splitting and polarization splitting, a spatial filter in the form of a two-dimensional array is disposed after the branch, and only diffracted light is shielded by the spatial filter in the form of a two-dimensional array. | 11-12-2009 |
| 20100208249 | Apparatus For Inspecting Defects - A defect inspection apparatus and method includes a darkfield illumination optical system which conducts darkfield illumination upon the surface of a sample with irradiation light having at least one of wavelength band, a darkfield detection optical system which includes a reflecting objective lens for converging the light scattered from the surface of the sample that has been darkfield-illuminated with the irradiation light having the at least one wavelength band, and imaging optics for imaging onto a light-receiving surface of an image sensor the scattered light that the reflecting objective lens has converged, and an image processor which, in accordance with an image signal obtained from the image sensor of the darkfield detection optical system, discriminates defects or defect candidates present on the surface of the sample. | 08-19-2010 |
| 20110075134 | Defect Inspection Method and System - An apparatus for inspecting a specimen includes a first illumination unit having a laser light source and a first optical component for illuminating a specimen on which patterns are formed with a laser from a first elevation angle direction, a second illuminating unit having a light source and a second optical component for illuminating the specimen from a second elevation angle direction which is greater than the first elevation angle, a first detection optical unit which detects light from the specimen illuminated by the first illumination unit, a second detection optical unit which detects light from the specimen illuminated by the second illumination unit, and a signal processing unit which processes signals output from the first detector to detect defects in a first area on the specimen and processes signals output from the second detector to detect defects in a second area on the specimen. | 03-31-2011 |
