Patent ID: 8035808

Claim:
A surface defect inspection apparatus comprising: a stage that holds an inspection sample; an illumination optical system that linearly irradiates a beam onto a surface of the inspection sample, and forms a line illumination region on the inspection sample surface; at least one detection optical system that detects scattered light from the line illumination region on the inspection sample surface; and a detection unit that converts scattered light from the line illumination region detected by the detection optical system to an electrical signal; wherein the stage is moved in a longitudinal direction of the line illumination region on the inspection sample surface at a feed pitch shorter than a longitudinal length of the line illumination region, wherein the feed pitch is variable so that the feed pitch on an outer portion of the inspection sample surface is shorter than the feed pitch on an inner portion of the inspection sample surface, wherein the apparatus includes a plurality of detection optical systems, and wherein the plurality of detection optical systems include different kinds of sensors.