Patent ID: 7587700

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving, via an interface, design information representative of a portion of a layer of an object that comprises sub-micron measurement targets from a data store; storing the received design information in a database; accessing, with a processor, the stored design information; processing, with the processor, the stored design information to provide a large number of measurement targets, wherein a measurement target is a sub-micron area located on the layer of the object and the processing includes determining information that is representative of an object included in the portion of the layer of the object that comprises sub-micron measurement targets; associating, with the processor, target measurement parameters to each of the large number of measurement targets, wherein the target measurement parameters comprise at least one of location information representative of a location of a target measurement on the layer of the object, a measurement field of view, and an electron beam parameter, wherein associating target measurement parameters comprises determining a presence of a unique feature within a measurement site that comprises a measurement target by processing, using an auto-correlation operation, at least a portion of an image of the measurement site; measuring, by a measurement tool, each measurement target of the large number of measurement targets using a target measurement parameter associated with each of the measurement targets; and processing, by the processor, the measurement results.