Did You Know...
...that Thomas Edison's patent application on his phonograph was approved by the Patent Office in just seven weeks? In contrast, it took Gordon Gould, the inventor of the laser, 30 years to obtain his patent -- finally awarded in 1988!
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8184282 | Method and system for defect detection using transmissive bright field illumination and transmissive dark field illumination A method for defect detection using transmissive bright field and transmissive dark field illumination, the method includes: determining a relationship between at least one transmissive bright field illuminator (92) characteristic and at least one transmissiv... | 05/22/2012 |
| 8184283 | Optical defect inspection apparatus A laser beam oscillated from a laser source is folded in its path by first and second plane mirrors and enters a beam expander. The surface of each plane mirror is deteriorated with illumination by the laser beam and the reflectance is reduced. To avoid a light quan... | 05/22/2012 |
| 8179524 | Hard disk inspection apparatus A hard disk inspection apparatus comprises a disk holding device which holds a hard disk; a light source which generates a light that illuminates an inspection region portion of a hard disk that is held by the disk holding device; a light guide which has a branched ... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8174690 | Apparatus for characterizing a surface structure An apparatus for optically characterizing a surface structure of a board or sheet, includes a light source arranged at a first side of a said board and adapted to illuminate a first area of a surface of said board or sheet by emitting towards said surface a collimat... | 05/08/2012 |
| 8169606 | Appearance inspection apparatus An appearance inspection apparatus analyzes a difference in detection characteristics of detection signals obtained by detectors to flexibly meet various inspection purposes without changing a circuit or software. The apparatus includes a signal synthesizing section... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8169605 | Apparatus and method for inspecting liquid crystal display A method of inspecting a liquid crystal display panel includes providing a liquid crystal display panel to be inspected, turning on a backlight unit that is disposed under the liquid crystal display panel to emit light toward the liquid crystal panel, driving the li... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8149395 | Apparatus and method for inspecting pattern A method and apparatus for inspecting defects includes emitting an ultraviolet light from an ultraviolet light source, illuminating a specimen with the ultraviolet light in which a polarization condition of the ultraviolet light is controlled, controlling a polariza... | 04/03/2012 |
| 8134701 | Defect inspecting method and apparatus A defect inspecting apparatus of the invention solves a problem that in a defect inspecting apparatus, because of improving detection sensitivity of a microscopic defect by reducing a detection pixel size, a focal depth becomes shallow, a height of imaging is varied... | 03/13/2012 |
| 8130373 | Metrology of thin film devices using an addressable micromirror array An addressable micromirror array is employed in conjunction with circuit topology navigation software to rapidly wavelength sample selected measurement points in an integrated circuit region. ... | 03/06/2012 |
| 8130372 | Wafer holding mechanism A wafer holding mechanism for holding a wafer of the type used in the manufacture of semiconductor devices is herein described. The mechanism has a first plate having a number of offsets that define at least one lip that extends radially inward of the offsets. A sec... | 03/06/2012 |
| 8120766 | Inspection apparatus Scattered light that originates from the surface roughness of silicon or other metallic films is distributed more strongly at positions closer to the starting position of the scattering. Of all scattered-light detection signals obtained during multi-directional dete... | 02/21/2012 |
| 8115915 | Defect inspection method and apparatus A method and apparatus for inspecting a defect of a surface of a sample in which a laser beam is irradiated on a sample surface so that at least a part of an illumination field of the laser beam illuminates a first area of the sample surface, a plurality of scattere... | 02/14/2012 |
| 8107064 | Disc wafer inspecting device and inspecting method An inspecting device and an inspecting method enabling better precision inspection for a processing region formed on a surface of a semiconductor wafer or other disc wafer are provided. The inspecting device is configured having image capturing means 130a,... | 01/31/2012 |
| 8102521 | Optical inspection system and method An inspection system includes optics, an object support for mounting an object in a region of an object plane of the optics, a bright-field light source, and a dark-field light source. The inspection system also includes an image detector having a radiation sensitiv... | 01/24/2012 |
| 8098372 | Optical inspection tool featuring multiple speed modes An optical inspection tool can feature a double-speed and other modes whereby the inspection rate is increased by using pixel binning. For instance, the tool may include an array of pixels provided by one or more detectors. Some or all of the pixels in one or more o... | 01/17/2012 |
| 8094297 | Laser-based maintenance apparatus for inspecting flaws A surface inspecting method for inspecting a flaw of a test object using a surface wave and estimating a depth of the flaw of the test object from an attenuation ratio of a frequency of a generation wave, the surface inspecting method including calculating a power s... | 01/10/2012 |
| 8094296 | Optical inspection of surfaces open to different directions in a piece of material The invention relates to a device for optical inspection of the open surfaces (19 of objects from at least two different viewing directions (P1, P2). The device comprises a telecentric imaging unit (11 or 12, an angle mirror (13... | 01/10/2012 |
| 8072591 | Optical inspection system and method A wafer inspection system has a bright field imaging beam path and a dark field imaging beam path to obtain bright field images and dark field images of a full 300 mm wafer. The optical system provides for telecentric imaging and has low optical aberrations. The bri... | 12/06/2011 |
| 8059268 | Inspecting a workpiece using polarization of scattered light A surface inspection system, as well as related components and methods, are provided. The surface inspection system includes a beam source subsystem, a beam scanning subsystem, a workpiece movement subsystem, an optical collection and detection subsystem, and a proc... | 11/15/2011 |
| 8049877 | Computer-implemented methods, carrier media, and systems for selecting polarization settings for an inspection system Computer-implemented methods, carrier media, and systems for selecting polarization settings for an inspection system for inspection of a layer of a wafer are provided. One method includes detecting a population of defects on the layer of the wafer using results of ... | 11/01/2011 |
| 8045147 | Method for determining the surface quality of a substrate and associated machine for converting the substrate A method for determining the surface quality of a substrate passing from an initial state into a converted state during a conversion process including the steps of acquiring first information relating to surface defects detected on the initial substrate, acquiring s... | 10/25/2011 |
| 8045145 | Systems and methods for acquiring information about a defect on a specimen Systems and methods for acquiring information about a defect on a specimen are provided. One system includes an optical subsystem configured to acquire topography information about the defect. The system also includes an electron beam subsystem configured to acquire... | 10/25/2011 |
| 8045149 | Apparatus for detecting defects using multiple coordinate systems An apparatus is disclosed for detecting defects on a sample inspected by different inspection apparatuses. A data processing unit receives position information of a first defects group in a first coordinate system, based on inspection of the sample under a first con... | 10/25/2011 |
| 8045146 | Method and apparatus for reviewing defect The present invention provides an apparatus and a method for reviewing a defect with high throughput by detecting the defect to be reviewed with high sensitivity, comprising: an optical microscope; a correction means; and a scanning electron microscope which reviews... | 10/25/2011 |
| 8045148 | System for monitoring foreign particles, process processing apparatus and method of electronic commerce A system for monitoring foreign matter includes a manufacturing line having plural process processing apparatuses, a production management system which manages the processing of workpieces in the manufacturing line, plural optical heads which monitor foreign matter ... | 10/25/2011 |
| 8040502 | Optical inspection of flat media using direct image technology The invention is directed at a method and system of detecting defects in a transparent media such as a piece of glass. The method comprises the steps of transmitting light from a light source towards the transparent media and then detecting defects in the transparen... | 10/18/2011 |
| 8040503 | Method of inspecting a semiconductor device and an apparatus thereof A method and apparatus of inspecting a sample, in which the sample is inspected under a plurality of inspection conditions, and inspection data obtained by inspecting the sample under each of the plurality of inspection conditions and position information on the sam... | 10/18/2011 |
| 8018586 | Metrology of thin film devices using an addressable micromirror array An addressable micromirror array is employed in conjunction with circuit topology navigation software to rapidly wavelength sample selected measurement points in an integrated circuit region. ... | 09/13/2011 |
| 8018585 | Surface defect inspecting apparatus with defect detection optical system and defect-detected image processing There is provided a defect inspecting apparatus, which includes an irradiating optical system of irradiating a light beam on a surface of a face plate of a disk mounted on a stage to scan the surface of the face plate, a light-receiving optical system of receiving s... | 09/13/2011 |
| 8013989 | Defects inspecting apparatus and defects inspecting method An inspecting apparatus and method including first and second illuminating units for illuminating a surface of a specimen to be inspected with different incident angles and first and second detecting optical units arranged at different elevation angle directions to ... | 09/06/2011 |
| 8004666 | Apparatus for inspecting defects A defect inspection apparatus and method includes a darkfield illumination optical system which conducts darkfield illumination upon the surface of a sample with irradiation light having at least one of wavelength band, a darkfield detection optical system which inc... | 08/23/2011 |
| 7999932 | Inspection apparatus and inspection method An inspection apparatus includes a wafer stage for carrying a wafer, an illumination module which irradiates an inspection beam on the wafer carried on the wafer stage, a detection module which detects scattering rays or reflection rays from the wafer on the wafer s... | 08/16/2011 |
| 7990530 | Optical inspection method and optical inspection apparatus In the conventional contaminant particle/defect inspection method, if the illuminance of the illumination beam is held at not more than a predetermined upper limit value not to give thermal damage to the sample, the detection sensitivity and the inspection speed bei... | 08/02/2011 |
| 7986405 | Foreign matter inspection method and foreign matter inspection apparatus In a foreign matter inspection apparatus comprising: irradiating unit for irradiating inspection light to an inspection area of an article to be inspected; intensity detecting unit for detecting intensity of either reflected light or scattered light, which is genera... | 07/26/2011 |
| 7986404 | Inspection system employing illumination that is selectable over a continuous range angles An illumination device and method for inspecting objects having microscopic features is provided. The device includes an illuminator which provides a solid angle of angularly specific illumination defining an illumination angle, selected by a user from among a conti... | 07/26/2011 |
| 7982867 | Methods for depth profiling in semiconductors using modulated optical reflectance technology Methods of obtaining dopant and damage depth profile information are disclosed using modulated optical reflectivity (MOR) measurements. In one aspect, the depth profile is constructed using information obtained from various measurements such as the junction depth, j... | 07/19/2011 |
| 7973920 | Apparatus and method for inspecting defects A defect inspection apparatus includes a movable stage for mounting a substrate having circuit patterns as an object of inspection, an irradiation optical system which irradiates a slit-shaped light beam from an oblique direction to the circuit patterns of the subst... | 07/05/2011 |
| 7973919 | High resolution wafer inspection system A method for inspecting a region, including irradiating the region via an optical system with a pump beam at a pump wavelength. A probe beam at a probe wavelength irradiates the region so as to generate returning probe beam radiation from the region. The beams are s... | 07/05/2011 |
| 7969565 | Device for inspecting a surface A device that is usable to inspect the surface of a material uses an inspection system which includes an optical unit. That optical unit can register the light which is reflected by the surface to be inspected. An illumination system, that uses at least two light so... | 06/28/2011 |
| 7969567 | Method and device for detecting shape of surface of medium A defect generated during a nano-imprint process is inspected by a scatterometry method. The scatterometry method is to illuminate the surface of a medium with light having a plurality of wave lengths by means of a first illuminator through a half mirror and an obje... | 06/28/2011 |
