Patent ID: 9466463
Filing Date: 2016-10-11
CPC Classification: H01J

Claim Text:
1. A method for inspecting a substrate using multiple charged particle beams produced by multiple columns, comprising the actions of: a) imaging the substrate, including substrate locations identified as care-areas in step b), at a low resolution using scanning of the beams in a predefined regular pattern across the substrate, different ones of the beams targeting different corresponding portions of the substrate; b) identifying one or more care-areas on the substrate, with which at least one associated defect database is populated, using said low resolution imaging; c) vectoring ones of the beams to corresponding ones of said care-areas within said corresponding portions without using said predefined regular pattern; and d) imaging the substrate at a high resolution using scanning of the vectored beams in a raster-like pattern across said corresponding care-areas, while substantially skipping non-care-areas, wherein steps c) and d) are performed differently and simultaneously by different ones of the beams.