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:
Mar. 07, 2006
Filed:
Mar. 29, 2004
Daniel I. Some, Ashdod, IL;
Daniel I. Some, Ashdod, IL;
Applied Materials, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
An area of a substrate is imaged with and without heating, to obtain a hot image and a cold image respectively. The hot and cold images are compared with one another to identify one or more locations as being defective, e.g. if the result of comparison at one location differs significantly relative to other locations. The comparison results in all locations form a differential image, and in several embodiments a number of differential images are obtained by repeatedly heating, imaging and comparing. In such embodiments, multiple differential images are averaged at each location, to improve the signal to noise ratio. Pump and probe lasers may be used for heating and for illumination respectively, or alternatively a single laser may be employed to generate both pump and probe beams.