Method and its apparatus for inspecting particles or defects of a semiconductor device

摘要

An apparatus for optically inspecting particles and/or defects correlates sizes of particles and/or defects to a cause of failure in an inspection result. A data processing circuit points out a cause of failure from the statistics on the inspection result, and displays information on the inspection result. A failure analysis is conducted by setting a threshold for identifying a failure in each of regions on a semiconductor device or the like to statistically evaluate detected particles.