Patent ID: 7650028

Claim:
A method for inspecting a non-patterned area of a surface of a translucent substrate comprising: using a processor to perform the following: illuminating the translucent substrate by a light source with vicinal illumination, said vicinal illumination comprising illuminating an illuminated area of the translucent substrate, the illuminated area of the translucent substrate displaced from an imaged area of the translucent substrate, the imaged area comprising a sub-area of the non-patterned area, the imaged area imaged by an image generating device thereby generating images of the surface of the translucent substrate comprised of diffused reflected light from the light source; receiving first image data representative of a first imaged area within the non-patterned area of the translucent substrate; receiving second image data representative of a second imaged area within the non-patterned area of the translucent substrate, the second imaged area selected from an area abutting the first imaged area and an area overlapping the first imaged area; extracting a first data subset from the first image data, the first data subset representative of a first portion of the non-patterned area; extracting a second data subset from the second image data, said second data subset representative of a second portion of the non-patterned area, said first and second data subsets each having an illumination intensity within a reference range, the first portion of the non-patterned area being adjacent to and aligned with the second portion of the non-patterned area; and, constructing a composite image from the extracted first and second data subsets, the composite image comprising the adjacent and aligned first and second portions of the non-patterned area.