Patent ID: 8270703

Claim:
A defect inspection apparatus comprising: a first storage area for storing a distinguishing size of defect for distinguishing a pseudo defect caused by an inspection process trouble from a defect caused by a production process trouble; an image data acquiring unit for acquiring image data of a surface of a wafer to be inspected; a second storage area for storing defect data on a plurality of detected defects; an output unit for outputting inspection results; and a processing unit, wherein: the processing unit detects a defect on a wafer surface in accordance with image data acquired by the image data acquiring unit; stores defect data on the detected defect in the second storage area; compares a size of a defect detected in a partial area with the distinguishing size stored in the first storage area before a defect detection process is completed for a whole area of the wafer surface to be subjected to defect detection; outputs an alarm notifying that the inspection apparatus is in trouble through the output unit, if a defect having a size equal to or larger than the distinguishing size is detected and is judged as the pseudo defect; and executes the defect detection process for the area still not subjected to the defect detection process, if a defect having a size equal to or larger than the distinguishing size is not detected and is not judged as the pseudo defect.