Patent ID: 11875966
Assignee: ASML NETHERLANDS B.V.
Field: Electrical machinery, apparatus, energy (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 12:
13. An electron beam inspection apparatus comprising:
a plurality of electron beam columns arranged in an array of one or more rows and one or more columns, each electron beam column configured to provide a multi-beam of electron beams to an object, wherein the multi-beam comprises a plurality of beams arranged in a two-dimensional arrangement and wherein the object has a plurality of separate fields or dies, each field or die having a boundary to enable separation of the object into pieces;
an actuator system configured to move one or more of the electron beam columns relative to another one or more of the electron beam columns; and
a non-transitory computer program product comprising machine-readable instructions configured to cause relative movement between the object and the electron beam columns for inspection such that, during the inspection, a span in all directions of the combined field of view of the multi-beams of a respective electron beam column is less than the span in all directions of the field or die being inspected by those multi-beams of the respective electron beam column and such that each electron beam column is arranged to scan a same portion of a respective field or die at a same time when the electron beams are scanned relative to the object.