Patent ID: 8170707

Claim:
A failure detecting method comprising: inputting a foreign substance inspection map created by foreign substance inspection for a wafer surface after each processing process in a wafer processing process; inputting a die sort map created by a die sort test after the wafer processing process; setting a plurality of region segments in the wafer; setting a region number for each of the region segments; calculating foreign substance density in each of the region segments, based on the foreign substance inspection map, and plotting the foreign substance density, using the region numbers, to calculate a foreign substance inspection map waveform characteristic amount; calculating failure density in each of the region segments, based on the die sort map, and plotting the failure density, using the region numbers, to calculate a die sort map waveform characteristic amount; calculating similarity between the foreign substance inspection map waveform characteristic amount and the die sort map waveform characteristic amount; and identifying a processing process that is a cause of failure occurrence, based on the similarity, wherein a plurality of first regions, into which the wafer is divided in a radial direction, and a plurality of fan-shaped second regions, into which the wafer is divided in a central angle direction, are combined to set the plurality of region segments.