Patent ID: 6965429

Claim:
A method for reviewing a defect, comprising: a defect image pick-up step for moving a field of view of a microscope to an inspection position on a sample based on information from an inspection tool that has detected a defect and picking up an image at said inspection position; a reference image pick-up determination step for determining whether an image of a reference position designed to have the same appearance as said inspection position is to be picked up or not; a reference image pick-up step for moving said field of view of the microscope to said reference position and picking up an image of said reference position in accordance with a determination result produced in said reference image pick-up determination step; and defect area extraction step for extracting a defect area at said inspection position from at least a selected one of just the image of said inspection position or both the image of said inspection position and the image said reference position in accordance with the determination result; wherein said reference image pick-up determination step includes at least a selected one of an image pick-up pre-start reference image pick-up determination step for provisionally determining, before said defect image pick-up step, whether the image of said reference position is to be picked up or not or an image pick-up post-start reference image pick-up determination step for finally determining, after said defect image pick-up step, whether the image of said reference position is to be picked up or not.