Patent Document ID: 20080170774
Application ID: 11669014
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for inspecting a surface to identify lithographically significant defects, the method comprising: providing a mask reticle configured to achieve photolithographic transfer of a mask pattern onto a substrate using a high numeric aperture (NA) lithography system having a high image numeric aperture (NA); processing the optical parameters of the high NA lithography system to obtain a plurality of matrix values associated with a high NA correction matrix that characterizes the optical parameters of the high NA lithography system; illuminating a portion of the mask reticle with a magnification inspection tool to produce a patterned illumination beam associated with a lithography pattern formed on the target; filtering the illumination beam with a plurality of filters to obtain a plurality of filtered beams, the filters comprising values associated with the matrix values of the high NA correction matrix, so that filtered beams conform to a model of optical performance of the high NA lithography system; detecting the plurality of filtered beams and producing raw image data associated with each filtered beam; and processing the raw image data associated with the filtered beams to obtain a reconstructed image.