KLA Corporation
Defect candidate generation for inspection

Abstract:

Systems and methods for detecting defect candidates on a specimen are provided. One method includes, after scanning of at least a majority of a specimen is completed, applying one or more segmentation methods to at least a substantial portion of output generated during the scanning thereby generating two or more segments of the output. The method also includes separately detecting outliers in the two or more segments of the output. In addition, the method includes detecting defect candidates on the specimen by applying one or more predetermined criteria to results of the separately detecting to thereby designate a portion of the detected outliers as the defect candidates.