Patent 7738119 was granted and assigned to Seiko Instruments on June, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Provided is an optical inspection system for a semiconductor wafer, by which a threshold value optimal for inspection can be determined and optical inspection of each chip can be performed based on the threshold value, by obtaining in advance a table indicating a relation between a film thickness of a thin film in specific positions in the wafer and a gradation value for each sample area in the chip, measuring the film thickness of the thin film in the specific positions of the wafer to be inspected before inspecting the chip, and comparing the measured film thickness with the gradation value in the table.