Patent ID: 9235885
Filing Date: 2016-01-12
CPC Classification: G01N,G06T,H01L

Claim Text:
1. A computerized method for inspecting an article for defects based on processing of inspection images generated by collecting signals arriving from the article, the method comprising: obtaining a candidate pixel of the inspection image, the candidate pixel being representative of a candidate article defect location; in a reference image, defining a source patch associated with a reference source pixel of the reference image which corresponds to the candidate pixel; in the reference image, based on the source patch and a predefined patch-similarity criterion, determining a similarity level with respect to each of a plurality of reference patches, each of which is associated with a reference image pixel; in the inspection image, rating each inspected pixel out of multiple inspected pixels 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; in the inspection image, selecting multiple selected inspected pixels based on the representative scores of the multiple inspected pixels; determining 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; and in each image of a plurality of images which includes the reference image: wherein the rating comprises rating each inspected pixel out of at least one of the multiple inspected pixels with a representative score which is based on multiple similarity levels of reference patches associated with pixels of the plurality of images which correspond to the inspected pixel.