Patent ID: 8754664

Claim:
An inspection method for inspecting electrical characteristics of an inspection object by bringing a probe into contact with a target position in the inspection object on a sample, the method comprising: a first image acquisition step of acquiring a high-quality, high-magnification first image of the target position in the inspection object on the sample by using a scanning electron microscope; a second image acquisition step of acquiring a low-quality, low-magnification second image of the target position in the inspection object on the sample and the probe by using the scanning electron microscope; a first image reduction step of reducing the first image so as to be the same in magnification as the second image, thereby generating a reduced image; and a coarse-access observation image generation step of synthesizing the reduced image and the second image to generate an image for coarse-access observation comprising the target position included in the reduced image and the probe included in the second image and bein the same in magnification as the second image, wherein the second image acquisition step, the first image reduction step, and the coarse-access observation image generation step are repeated as the probe is moved toward the target position until a determination is made that a distance between the target position in the inspection object and the probe is smaller than a predetermined value in the image for coarse-access observation.