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:
Jan. 28, 2003
Filed:
Feb. 22, 2000
Nikon Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A surface inspection apparatus of the present invention comprises: an illumination optical system which is fixed at a first predetermined angle with respect to a wafer and which irradiates a substantially parallel illuminating light toward the entire surface of the wafer an image pickup device which is fixed at a second predetermined angle with respect to the wafer and which receives diffracted light or scattered light from the wafer and projects an image of the wafer; and an image processing apparatus which performs a macro inspection by taking the image signal generated by the image pickup device and carrying out image processing, and is further provided with a plurality of interference filters F F to enable the variable setting of the wavelength of the illuminating light from the illumination optical system In this apparatus, macro inspections can be carried out efficiently on a variety of objects while apparatus such as the illumination apparatus and the image projection apparatus are maintained in fixed positions.