PATTERN INSPECTING METHOD

摘要

PURPOSE:To perform comparison and inspection without being affected by an irregularity in the film thickness of a photoresist pattern by comparing an inspection pattern with an example pattern and inspecting only the part of the example pattern where there is no pattern. CONSTITUTION:The inspection pattern detected by a pattern detector 20 is converted by an A/D converter 21 into an inspection pattern 27 in the form of a digital signal consisting of several bits. An example pattern generator 22 generates an example pattern 28 synchronized with the pattern generator 20. A position shift detector 23 finds a shift in position and a position shift correcting circuit 24 shifts the example pattern 28 and positions it at the inspection pattern 27. A masking circuit 25 marks the inspection pattern 27 with the example pattern 29 which is already positioned and a binary coding circuit 26 converts the output of the masking circuit 25 into a binary signal to indicates a defect.