| 摘要 |
<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To realize a pattern inspection method and an inspection apparatus with a simple structure, which surely detect killer defects but do not detect one being not the killer defect. <P>SOLUTION: The pattern inspection apparatus, which compares identical patterns having portions of lines 61, 62 being repeated at a prescribed pitch and judges the portions being not coincident as defects, is provided with an image forming device 1, 21 that forms a multi-valued image of the pattern, a differential image forming circuit 24 that generates differential data of the two patterns to be compared, an average gray level generating section 31 that generates average gray level data of respective pixel arrays within the range of a prescribed portion of the line in a direction in which the line extends, a region kind determining section 31 that processes the average gray level data statistically and determines the kind of regions in which the pixel arrays belong respectively, a threshold determining section 31 that determines threshold values for the respective pixel arrays in accordance with the region kinds and statistically processed results of differential data of the pixel arrays, and a judging section 25 that judges the defect by comparing the threshold value with the differential data of each region. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO |
