Patent ID: 6958477

Claim:
A beam inspection apparatus, comprising: a beam source that discharges a beam; a stage system that holds a specimen and moves continuously in at least one direction; a primary optical system that directs the beam to the specimen; a secondary optical system that guides a secondary beam coming from the specimen; a sensor that outputs an electric signal of the specimen image from the secondary beam; an image processor that generates image information of the specimen by processing the electric signal output by the sensor; and a host computer that generates an inspection timing signal for controlling the sensor to transfer the image information at a preset data transfer rate, wherein the stage system is moved at a speed in conformity to the inspection timing signal, and a signal charge of the specimen image converted by the sensor is transferred at an effective data transfer rate of larger than 2.29×10 7 Hz/pix and at a line rate of larger than 11175 Hz/line.