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:
Jun. 02, 2015
Filed:
Jun. 27, 2013
Hitachi High-technologies Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Shigeru Matsui, Hitachinaka, JP;
HITACHI HIGH-TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A surface inspecting apparatus rotates a semiconductor wafer(inspection object) as a main scan while translating the semiconductor waferas an auxiliary scan, illuminates the surface of the semiconductor waferwith illuminating light, thereby forms an illumination spotas the illumination area of the illuminating light, detects scattered or diffracted or reflected light from the illumination spot, and detects a foreign object existing on the surface of the semiconductor waferor in a part of the semiconductor waferin the vicinity of the surface based on the result of the detection. In the surface inspecting apparatus, the translation speed of the auxiliary scan is controlled according to the distance from the rotation center of the semiconductor waferin the main scan to the illumination spot. With this control, the inspection time can be shortened while the deterioration in the detection sensitivity and the increase in the thermal damage during the surface inspection are suppressed.