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:
Sep. 02, 2003
Filed:
Aug. 02, 1999
Applicant:
Inventor:
Hamid K. Aghajan, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Assignee:
Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Assistant Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G06K 9/00 ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
G06K 9/00 ;
Abstract
A two-dimensional scatter plot is created by plotting the gray levels of pixels from a test image against the gray levels of corresponding pixels from a reference image. A noise reduction filter is applied on the scatter plot to define a mask shape which can be extracted and filled-in to generate a mask. Defect pixels on the test image are identified by comparing corresponding pixel gray values against the mask. A typical application is detecting defects in a semiconductor wafer during device fabrication.