Patent ID: 7822574

Claim:
A substrate measuring method, implemented by a control unit that has been programmed with instructions that cause the control unit to function as a substrate measuring system, the method comprising: measuring processing states of a plurality of substrates that have been successively transferred from a plurality of lots and subjected to processing, each of the lots including a plurality of substrates, wherein at least one of the substrates of the plurality of substrates in each of the plurality of lots is selected and subjected to substrate measurement, wherein the substrate measurement of two successive lots is performed such that the substrate measurement of a last substrate in a previous lot of the two successive lots has been completed at a time of completion of processing of a substrate which is first subjected to the substrate measurement in a subsequent lot of the two successive lots, wherein if processing recipes for the two successive lots are the same, and there are N processing units, N being a positive integer, which perform the same step in the processing, and the successively transferred substrates are separated and processed in the N processing units, the substrate measurement is performed for the substrates which have been processed in each of the processing units, and wherein the substrate measurement of the N substrates which have been processed in different processing units is performed to perform measurement at some of measurement points of a plurality of measurement points within the substrate of each of the substrates in the substrate measurement of the previous lot of the two successive lots, the measurement at the remaining measurement points of each of the N substrates is performed in the substrate measurement of the subsequent lot of the two successive lots, and measurement results at each of the measurement points of the substrates which have been processed in the same processing unit are then combined.