Patent ID: 6995566

Claim:
A circuit-pattern inspection apparatus for inspecting conductive patterns formed on a board, said conductive patterns including a conductive comb-shaped pattern and a plurality of conductive discrete patterns, said conductive comb-shaped pattern having an edge region formed as a plurality of finger pattern segments arranged approximately in parallel with each other and a base region formed as an integral connection pattern segment integrally connecting the base-side ends of said finger pattern segments, each of said conductive discrete patterns being disposed between the adjacent finger pattern segments to extend from the vicinity of the base region to the vicinity of the edge region of said comb-shaped pattern in a non-connecting manner, each of at least a part of said discrete patterns being not in connecting with the remaining discrete patterns, said circuit-pattern inspection apparatus comprising: edge-region capacitive coupling means adapted to be capacitively coupled with said finger pattern segments and said discrete patterns one by one in the vicinity of the edge region of said comb-shaped pattern while ensuring a sufficient coupling capacity therebetween in a non-contact manner; base-region capacitive coupling means extending in a given range capable of being capacitively coupled with the entire region of said connection pattern segment of said comb-shaped pattern while ensuring a sufficient coupling capacity therebetween in a non-contact manner; common capacitive coupling means extending in a given range capable of being capacitively coupled with the respective base-side ends of said finger pattern segments branched from said connection pattern segment and the respective base-side ends of said discrete patterns located adjacent to the base region of said comb-shaped pattern, while ensuring a sufficient coupling capacity therebetween in a non-contact manner; inspection-signal supply means for supplying an inspection signal to either one of said base-region and common capacitive coupling means; and detect means for detecting changes in a signal from the respective edge-side ends of said finger pattern segments and said discrete patterns through said edge-region capacitive coupling means in response to said inspection signal supplied from said inspection-signal supply means, wherein each of said comb-shaped pattern and said discrete patterns is inspected in accordance with a first detection result obtained through said detect means in response to the inspection signal supplied to said base-region capacitive coupling means, and a second detection result obtained through said detect means in response to the inspection signal supplied to said common capacitive coupling means.