Patent ID: 8718353

Claim:
A method of inspecting a photolithographic reticle, the method comprising: receiving a stream of defect data from a reticle inspection system, wherein the defect data identifies a plurality of defects that were detected for a plurality of different portions of the reticle; before reviewing the defect data to determine whether the reticle passes inspection and as the stream of defect data continues to be received, automatically grouping some of the defects with other most recently one or more received defects so as form groups of matching defects; before reviewing the defect data to determine whether the reticle passes inspection and after all of the defect data for the reticle is received, automatically filtering one or more of the groups of defects that have a number above a predetermined threshold from the defect data so as to form filtered defect data; and providing the filtered defect data to a review station for determining whether the reticle passes, wherein the predetermined threshold has an adjusted value that depends on a level of uniformity of an area that surrounds the defect of such particular group.