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:
Feb. 21, 2006
Filed:
Mar. 03, 2004
Applicant:
Steven R. Lange, Alamo, CA (US);
Inventor:
Steven R. Lange, Alamo, CA (US);
Assignee:
KLA-Tencor Technologies Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Assistant Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G02B 6/00 (2006.01);
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
Abstract
An illuminator for uniformly illuminating an entrance pupil of an inspection system in order to increase inspection resolution and sensitivity and improve system-to-system matching is described. The illuminator incorporates at least two lightpipes for spatially and angularly distributing light rays from the illuminator uniformly across the entrance pupil. The illuminator also results in spatial and angular uniformity at the field stop plane. In one embodiment, one lightpipe has a circular shape and a second lightpipe has a rectangular shape.