Patent ID: 6998630

Claim:
An apparatus for inspecting defects comprising: illuminating means for irradiating light to an object under inspection; light detecting means for detecting reflected light or scattered light from the object under inspection; processing means for processing a signal output from the light detecting means to detect defects; classifying means for classifying said defects detected by said processing means into categories; dimension calculating means for processing the signal according to the classified categories to calculate a size of each defect; data processing means for processing an inspection result; and display means for displaying information on the inspection result, wherein the data processing means relates a defect size to a cause of failure to estimate a cause of failure from statistical processing on the inspection result, and the display means display information on the estimated cause of failure, and wherein said classifying means classifies said defects detected by said processing means into said categories in accordance with shape of said defects, and said dimension calculating means includes a storage unit in which a plurality of conversion curves used for calculating defect size of said defects have been stored in advance, each of curves representing relationship between intensity of light detected by said light detecting means and defect size, and being configured in accordance with shape of defect.