Patent ID: 7769225

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for detecting defects in a reticle design pattern, comprising: acquiring images of a field in the reticle design pattern, wherein the images illustrate how the field will be printed on a wafer at different values of one or more parameters of a wafer printing process, and wherein the field comprises a first die and a second die; detecting defects in the field by comparing two or more of the images to each other, wherein the two or more of the images that are compared to each other correspond to two or more of the different values; determining if individual defects located in the first die have substantially the same within die position as individual defects located in the second die; and assigning a composite priority to the individual defects based on results of said determining in combination with the different values of the one or more parameters of the wafer printing process corresponding to the images of the field in which the individual effects in the first and second die were detected.