Patent Document ID: 9892503
Application ID: 15344788
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of inspecting a photolithographic reticle, the method comprising: performing a first inspection of a reticle that has been identified as being within specifications so as to generate a plurality of baseline candidate defects and their location and size; after using the reticle in one or more photolithography processes after the first inspection, performing via a reticle inspection tool a second inspection of the reticle so as to generate a plurality of current candidate defects and their location and size values; and generating an inspection report of a plurality of filtered candidate defects and their images, wherein the filtered candidate defects include a first subset of the current candidate defects and their corresponding plurality of candidate defect images and exclude a second subset of the current candidate defects and their corresponding plurality of excluded images, wherein each of the first subset of current candidate defects included in the inspection report has a location and size value that fails to match any baseline candidate defect's location and size value by a predefined amount, and each of the second subset of current candidate defects excluded from the inspection report has a location and size value that matches any baseline candidate defect's location and size value by the predefined amount.