Patent ID: 7973918

Claim:
A pattern inspection apparatus comprising: a pulsed light source configured to emit pulsed light; a stage configured to mount thereon an inspection target object with a pattern formed thereon; a time delay integration (TDI) sensor configured to detect, a plurality of times with a time delay, each pixel value of an optical image of the inspection target object, wherein the optical image is acquired by emitting the pulsed light onto the inspection target object, and to integrate a detected each pixel value for each pixel of the optical image; a light quantity sensor configured to detect a light quantity of the pulsed light having transmitted through or having been reflected by the inspection target object after emitting the pulsed light onto the inspection target object; a light quantity measurement circuit configured to input the light quantity detected by the light quantity sensor, and to measure a light quantity of each pulse while being synchronized with a period of the pulsed light; a correction unit configured to input the light quantity of each pulse and an integrated pixel value output from the TDI sensor, and to correct the integrated pixel value output from the TDI sensor, for each pixel of the optical image, by multiplying the integrated pixel value by a ratio between a reference total light quantity calculated using a reference image based on a design pattern data and a total light quantity of the light quantity of each corresponding pulse; and an inspection unit configured to inspect whether there is a defect of the pattern, using the integrated pixel value corrected.