CHARGED PARTICLE BEAM APPARATUS

摘要

Selective inspection of a defect on a predetermined pattern is useful for the purpose of estimating a cause of defect generation, in inspection of patterns, such as patterns of semiconductor devices. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a charged particle beam apparatus which can set, corresponding to the shape of a pattern on a sample, a region to be inspected. The present invention is characterized in that: the profile of a pattern on a sample is extracted using a template image obtained on the basis of an image of the sample; a region to be inspected is set on the basis of the profile of the pattern; a defect candidate is detected by comparing the image to be inspected with a comparison image; and the sample is inspected using the positional relationship between the region to be inspected and the defect candidate included in the region to be inspected.