Patent ID: 7443498

Claim:
A method for inspecting a defect occurred in a repetitive pattern on a member to be inspected, the repetitive pattern having a plurality of unit patterns that are arranged in a regularity, the defect being that occurred in a plurality of said unit patterns in another regularity, the method comprising the steps of: detecting the defect occurring in the repetitive pattern of the member to be inspected to produce defect detection data; evaluating the defect detection data by comparing with pseudo mura defect detection data; determining whether the repetitive pattern is formed as satisfactory by the evaluation, wherein said defect detection is carried out by irradiating a light onto the repetitive pattern to generate diffraction light at an edge portion of the repetitive pattern, and receiving the diffraction light to produce defect detection data; and said pseudo mura defect detection data is produced by subjecting a predetermined repetitive pattern having pseudo mura defects to said light irradiation to receive the diffraction light generated at an edge portion of the predetermined repetitive pattern, said pseudo mura defect data containing defect data of a plurality of types of pseudo mura defects each with a plurality of defect intensities.