Patent application number | Description | Published |
20110286001 | DARK-FIELD DEFECT INSPECTING METHOD, DARK-FIELD DEFECT INSPECTING APPARATUS, ABERRATION ANALYZING METHOD, AND ABERRATION ANALYZING APPARATUS - By including an illumination system and a detection system, an information collecting function of monitoring an environment, such as temperature and atmospheric pressure, and an apparatus state managing function having a feedback function of comparing the monitoring result and a design value, a theoretical calculation value or an ideal value derived from simulation results and calibrating an apparatus so that the monitoring result is brought close to the ideal value, a unit for keeping the apparatus state and apparatus sensitivity constant is provided. A control unit | 11-24-2011 |
20120092484 | DEFECT INSPECTION METHOD AND APPARATUS THEREFOR - To effectively utilize the polarization property of an inspection subject for obtaining higher inspection sensitivity, for the polarization of lighting, it is necessary to observe differences in the reflection, diffraction, and scattered light from the inspection subject because of polarization by applying light having the same elevation angle and wavelength in the same direction but different polarization. According to conventional techniques, a plurality of measurements by changing polarizations is required to cause a prolonged inspection time period that is an important specification of inspection apparatuses. In this invention, a plurality of polarization states are modulated in micro areas in the lighting beam cross section, images under a plurality of polarized lighting conditions are collectively acquired by separately and simultaneously forming the scattered light from the individual micro areas in the individual pixels of a sensor, whereby inspection sensitivity and sorting and sizing accuracy are improved without reducing throughput. | 04-19-2012 |
20120092657 | METHOD OF DEFECT INSPECTION AND DEVICE OF DEFECT INSPECTION - A method of inspecting defects and a device inspecting defects of detecting defects at high sensitivity and high capture efficiency even on various patterns existing on a wafer. In the device of inspecting defects, an illumination optical system is formed of two systems of a coherent illumination of a laser | 04-19-2012 |
20120296576 | DEFECT INSPECTION METHOD AND DEVICE THEREOF - The present invention relates to a defect inspection device which includes: irradiating means for simultaneously irradiating different regions on a sample with illumination light under different optical conditions, the sample being predesigned to include patterns repeatedly formed thereupon, wherein the patterns are to be formed in the same shape; detection means for detecting, for each of the different regions, a beam of light reflected from each region irradiated with the illumination light; defect candidate extraction means for extracting defect candidates under the different optical conditions for each of the different regions, by processing detection signals corresponding to the reflected light which is detected; defect extraction means for extracting defects by integrating the defect candidates extracted under the different optical conditions; and defect classifying means for calculating feature quantities of the extracted defects and classifies the defects according to the calculated feature quantities. | 11-22-2012 |
20130114880 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR INSPECTING DEFECT - In inspecting a substrate having a transparent oxide film or a metal film formed on a surface thereof by using a dark field type inspection apparatus installing a laser light source, an illuminating beam having a high coherence causes variations in reflection strength due to multiple interferences within the transparent oxide film or an interference of scattered beams due to the surface roughness of the metal film occurs and which leads to degradation in the sensitivity of defect detection. The present invention solves the problem by providing a low-coherence but high-brightness illumination using a highly directive broadband light source, and a system in which the conventional laser light source is simultaneously employed to selectively use the light sources, thereby enabling a highly sensitive inspection according to the condition of a wafer. | 05-09-2013 |
20130188184 | DEFECT INSPECTING APPARATUS AND DEFECT INSPECTING METHOD - A defect inspecting apparatus includes an irradiation optical system having a light source that emits illumination light and a polarization generation part that adjusts polarization state of the illumination light emitted from the light source, a detection optical system having a polarization analysis part that adjusts polarization state of scattered light from a sample irradiated by the irradiation optical system and a detection part that detects the scattered light adjusted by the polarization analysis part, and a signal processing system that processes the scattered light detected by the detection optical system to detect a defect presenting in the sample. The polarization generation part adjusts the polarization state of the illumination light emitted from the light source on the basis of predetermined illumination conditions and the polarization analysis part adjusts the polarization state of the illumination light emitted from the light source on the basis of predetermined detection conditions. | 07-25-2013 |
20130242294 | DEFECT INSPECTION DEVICE AND DEFECT INSPECTION METHOD - To prevent overlooking of a defect due to reduction in a defect signal, a defect inspection device is configured such that: light is irradiated onto an object to be inspected on which a pattern is formed; reflected, diffracted, and scattered light generated from the object by the irradiation of the light is collected, such that a first optical image resulting from the light passed through a first spatial filter having a first shading pattern is received by a first detector, whereby a first image is obtained; the reflected, diffracted, and scattered light generated from the object is collected, such that a second optical image resulting from the light passed through a second spatial filter having a second shading pattern is received by a second detector, whereby a second image is obtained; and the first and second images thus obtained are processed integrally to detect a defect candidate(s). | 09-19-2013 |
20130293879 | DEFECT INSPECTION METHOD AND DEVICE THEREFOR - To process a signal from a plurality of detectors without being affected by a variation in the height of a substrate, and to detect more minute defects on the substrate, a defect inspection device is provided with a photoelectric converter having a plurality of rows of optical sensor arrays in each of first and second light-collecting/detecting unit and a processing unit for processing a detection signal from the first and the second light-collecting/detecting unit to determine the extent to which the positions of the focal points of the first and the second light-collecting/detecting unit are misaligned with respect to the surface of a test specimen, and processing the detection signal to correct a misalignment between the first and the second light-collecting/detecting unit, and the corrected detection signal outputted from the first and the second light-collecting/detecting unit are combined together to detect the defects on the test specimen. | 11-07-2013 |