Kla Instruments Corporation

Eric James Hansotte

Paul Esrig

Method and apparatus for detecting non-uniformities in reflective surfaces, including an electro-luminescent panel for providing a substantially uniform illumination of the reflective surface of a planar object, such as a silicon wafer to be inspected, a camera positioned at an angle suitable for detecting light reflected from the inspected surface and for generating an output representative of the intensity of light reflected from each pixel of the reflective surface, and processing apparatus communicatively coupled to the camera and responsive to the output generated by the camera to in turn generate an output indicative of the surface uniformity of the surface under inspection. The preferred embodiment will normally include an appropriate housing or baffle structure for limiting the light viewed by the camera to that from the source as reflected by the surface being inspected, and may further include wafer-handling means and camera-positioning means.

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Eric James Hansotte