Patent ID: 7756658

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for detecting defects on a wafer and generating inspection results for the wafer, comprising: detecting defects on a wafer by comparing output generated by scanning of the wafer performed by an inspection system to one or more defect detection thresholds; sampling outliers in the output by selecting the outputs having the highest values from bins defined based on one or more predetermined criteria; selecting a portion of the sampled outliers based on wafer-level analysis of the sampled outliers; and generating inspection results for the wafer by combining information about the selected portion of the sampled outliers with information about the defects detected using the one or more defect detection thresholds; wherein the wafer-level analysis comprises identifying one or more signatures present in the sampled outliers, and wherein said selecting comprises comparing the defects detected using the one or more defect detection thresholds to the one or more signatures and selecting at least some of the sampled outliers such that the inspection results include at least some of the sampled outliers or defects corresponding to each of the one or more signatures.