PATTERN INSPECTION METHOD AND APPARATUS

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a wire pattern inspection method and an apparatus therefor which can detect a three-dimensional defect containing an internal defect of the wire pattern of a multilayer substrate. SOLUTION: Emitted X rays are made to transmit an object to be inspected and X-ray transmission varied density image signals corresponding to the thicknesses of wire patterns including the overlapping of a plurality of layers of the wire patterns is converted into digital image signals. The digital image signals converted are binarized 37 by a plurality of thresholds corresponding to the number of overlaps of the wire patterns to extract binarized image signals corresponding to the number of overlaps of the wire patterns. A skeleton line image signal indicating a skeleton line is extracted 40 for each of the binarized image signals. A defect judging processing means 54 is provided to inspect defects of the wire patterns by comparing connection information on the wire patterns obtained from the binarized skeleton line image signals with the larger number of overlaps extracted with the connection information on the wire patterns obtained from the binarized skeleton line image signals with the less number of the overlaps.