Patent ID: 8431895

Claim:
A pattern measuring apparatus comprising: an electron irradiating unit which irradiates an electron beam onto a sample while scanning; an image data acquiring unit which acquires an image of a pattern on the basis of an amount of electrons generated from the sample where the pattern is formed, by the radiation of the electron beam; a measurement region setting unit which sets paired measurement regions each including a pattern edge in the image of the pattern; and a control unit which controls an overall operation of the pattern measuring apparatus, the control unit calculating a distance between pattern edges in the paired measurement regions by detecting a shape of the pattern edge in each measurement region, respectively, wherein the control unit is configured to detect a flat portion in an edge profile of the pattern within each measurement region, the edge profile representing the pattern edge with position coordinates of each of measurement points arranged at predetermined intervals, and to define an average position of a plurality of ranges of the detected flat portions as a position of the pattern edge in each measurement region.