Patent 7584012 was granted and assigned to Hitachi on September, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An automatic defect review and classification system including at least one automatic defect review apparatus for specifically observing defect portions of a sample and at least one automatic defect classification apparatus for automatically classifying the defects, the system further comprising a device which outputs a status for combination of the automatic review apparatus and the automatic defect classification apparatus.