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:
Apr. 04, 2017
Filed:
Sep. 01, 2014
Kla-tencor Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Zvi Dubiner, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Krishnamurthy Bhaskar, San Jose, CA (US);
Mark J. Roulo, Mountain View, CA (US);
KLA-Tencor Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
An inspection system that receives image data corresponding to an image and processes the image data to produce a report corresponding to characteristics of the image. Interface cards receive the image data in a flow, where each interface card receives image data corresponding to a different portion of the image. Process nodes connect to the interface cards, and receive the image data from the interface cards. A host computer is connected to the process nodes, and job managers implemented in the host computer manage the flow of image data to and from the process nodes. The job managers remain operable during a crash of one of the process nodes. Process node programs are implemented in the process nodes, and analyze a portion of the image data and produce the report corresponding to the characteristics of the analyzed portion of the image data. At least one process node program is implemented in each process node. The process node programs rapidly analyze the image. The process node programs are isolated from the job managers so that a crash of a process node program does not crash the job manager.