Patent ID: 7505125

Claim:
A surface inspection system for inspecting the surface of a workpiece, the surface inspection system comprising: an optical collection and detection subsystem having a plurality of collection and detection modules for collecting light produced by impingement of an incident beam on the surface, and generating signals in response to the light; and a processing subsystem operatively coupled to the collection and detection subsystem for processing the signals, the processing system having a data acquisition system comprising a plurality of data acquisition nodes, each of said data acquisition nodes having associated therewith one of the collection and detection modules in the optical collection and detection subsystem; a data reduction system comprising a plurality of data reduction nodes; a communication network connecting the data acquisition system to the data reduction system so that each of said data reduction nodes is available on a peer to peer basis to each of the plurality of data acquisition nodes; wherein the plurality of collection and detection modules comprises: a front collection and detection module; a center collection and detection module; a pair of wing collection and detection modules; and a pair of back collection and detection modules.