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:
Aug. 12, 2014
Filed:
Dec. 04, 2009
Kenji Mitomo, Hitachinaka, JP;
Kenji Oka, Hitachinaka, JP;
Kenji Mitomo, Hitachinaka, JP;
Kenji Oka, Hitachinaka, JP;
Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
This application relates to an inspection apparatus including: a stage which holds a specimen; an illumination optical system which illuminates a surface of the specimen held on the stage, with illumination light; a dark-field optical system which detects scattered light generated by the illumination light with which the specimen is illuminated; a photoelectric converter which converts the scattered light detected by the dark-field optical system, into an electric signal; an A/D converter which converts the electric signal obtained by conversion by the photoelectric converter, into a digital signal; a judgement unit which determines the dimension of a foreign substance on the surface of the specimen on the basis of a magnitude of the scattered light from the foreign substance; and a signal processor which determines an inspection condition by use of information on the scattered light from the specimen surface.