System, a method and a computer program product for patch-based defect detection

US9235885B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Applied Materials Israel Ltd. · IL

Inventors

• Moshe Amzaleg · Beer Sheva, IL
• Nir Ben-David Dodzin · Hod HaSharon, IL
• Vered Gatt · Nes Ziona, IL
• Yair Hanani · Nes Ziona, IL
• Efrat Rozenman · Gdera, IL

Key dates

• Filing date: Jan 31, 2013
• Grant date: Jan 12, 2016
• Expiry date: Jul 26, 2033

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H01L22/12
• WIPO field: Measurement
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

A system capable of inspecting an article for defects, the system including: a patch comparator, configured to determine with respect to each of a plurality of reference patches in a reference image a similarity level, based on a predefined patch-similarity criterion and on a source patch defined in the reference image; an evaluation module, configured to rate each inspected pixel out of multiple inspected pixels of the inspection image with a representative score which is based on the similarity level of a reference patch associated with a reference pixel corresponding to the inspected pixel; a selection module, configured to select multiple selected inspected pixels based on the representative scores of the multiple inspected pixels; and a defect detection module, configured to determine a presence of a defect in the candidate pixel based on an inspected value of the candidate pixel and inspected values of the selected inspected pixels.