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:
Jul. 01, 2008
Filed:
Dec. 22, 2005
Mari Nozoe, Hino, JP;
Yasunori Goto, Hitachinaka, JP;
Zhaohui Cheng, Tokyo, JP;
Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
When the electrode potential of a charge control electrode above a wafer is reduced, image brightness is reduced. A point of change in the image brightness is a switching point between a positively charged state of the image and a negatively charged state of the image, showing the weakly charged state of the image. By setting this point of change as an inspecting condition, the amount of electric charges on the surface of the wafer can be reduced, and stable wafer inspection can be performed. It is estimated that an applied voltage Vin FIG.corresponds to the point of the change and is roughly included in the voltage range of a region enclosed by a broken line in the vicinity of the applied voltage V. Within this voltage range, the influence of charge on an inspection under the inspecting condition can be reduced.