Patent ID: 7733502

Claim:
A roughness evaluation method for evaluating a roughness of one or more lines formed on a substrate, the method comprising: a measuring step of irradiating light onto a plurality of locations of the substrate and measuring a state of reflected light by a scatterometry method; an analyzing step of evaluating the roughness of the lines based on a variation in values measured in the measuring step; and a sample measuring step of irradiating light onto a plurality of locations of a reference sample to measure a state of reflected light in advance by the scatterometry method, wherein, in the analyzing step, the variation in the values measured in the measuring step is compared to a variation in values of the reference sample measured in the sample measuring step to calculate an index based on a difference between the variation in the values measured in the measuring step and the variation in the values of the reference sample measured in the sample measuring step, and wherein, if the index is larger than a specific value, then a roughness is evaluated to exist.