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:
Jun. 17, 1997
Filed:
Aug. 29, 1995
Paul Esrig, Saratoga, CA (US);
Eric James Hansotte, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
KLA Instruments Corporation, San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
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.