Patent ID: 8249331

Claim:
A method for evaluating a object; the method comprises: obtaining an image of an area of the object; wherein the area comprises multiple arrays of repetitive structural elements that are at least partially surrounded by at least one group of non-repetitive regions; wherein non-repetitive regions that belong to a single group of non-repetitive regions are ideally identical to each other; wherein the non-repetitive regions are arranged in a repetitive manner; and providing an evaluation result in response to a comparison between image information of a first sub-area to image information of a second sub-area that is proximate to the first sub-area; wherein the first sub-area comprises a first array of repetitive structural elements and a first non-repetitive region; wherein the second subarea comprises a second array of repetitive structural elements and a second non-repetitive region, wherein said comparison comprises at least one of: a comparison of image information of a first array of memory cells and a first non-repetitive area including a first stitch and image information of a second array of memory cells and a second non-repetitive area that includes a second stitch, a comparison of image information of different structural elements of different sub-areas, each structural element being located at substantially a same position relative to boundaries of a sub-area that comprises the structural element, a comparison of image information of structural elements that are close to an edge of the first array of repetitive structural elements and image information of corresponding elements that are close to a corresponding edge of the second array of repetitive structural elements; a comparison of image information of a first repetitive element that is included in an outer portion of the first array of repetitive structural elements and image information of a corresponding repetitive element that is included in an outer portion of the second array of repetitive structural elements; and a comparison of image information of a first repetitive element that is included in an inner portion of the first array of repetitive structural elements to image information of another repetitive element that is included in the inner portion of the first array of repetitive structural elements.