Patent ID: 7474986

Claim:
A method of characterizing semiconductor wafer defects comprising: (a) inspecting a semiconductor wafer to locate defects; (b) storing locations corresponding to the located defects in a defect file; (c) automatically navigating a charged-particle beam to the area near a first defect using information from the defect file; (d) automatically imaging the first defect area and identifying the defect; (e) characterizing the defect using the charged particle beam imaging; (f) automatically navigating the charged-particle beam to the area near a next defect using information from the defect file and then automatically imaging the next defect area and identifying the defect and characterizing the next defect using the charged particle beam imaging; (g) repeating the process of automatically navigating to, imaging, and characterizing for all desired located defects; (h) determining a recipe for further analysis of at least one defect; and (i) automatically executing the recipe to further characterize the defect.