The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 23, 1988
Filed:
Aug. 07, 1987
Soheil Saadat, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Jiri Pecen, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Armand P Neukermans, Palo Alto, CA (US);
George J Kren, Los Altos, CA (US);
Tencor Instruments, Mountain View, CA (US);
Abstract
A particle detection method for matching particles detected in two scans of a surface taken at different times in which particles having a light scattering intensity above a collection threshold are first detected and the measured position and scattering intensity therefor stored in a computer memory. Corresponding first and second measured positions from the respective first and second scans are determined by forming a triangle from selected first detected particles and finding those second detected particles which form a variant triangle with matching perimeter and area. From these matching first and second particles a transformation is found for mapping first measured positions to corresponding second positions and vice versa. Areas around corresponding positions of particles having a scattering intensity above a display threshold are examined for matching particles. If not found, the area is reexamined at a reduced threshold. Matching particles are considered to be the same, while unmatched particles are considered to be either added or removed. The method provides an accurate count of particles for process contamination analysis.