Patent 7834992 was granted and assigned to Hitachi on November, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
In the present invention, to make corrective matching thereof, it is designed as follows; position effect of defects coordinates, which are output from an inspection apparatus, is allowed, coordinates of inspected data are mutually corrected, and a state of coincidence or non-coincidence among a plurality sets of inspected data is output or displayed. Inspection data is designed to include kinds, kinds difference and dimension of defects. A state of coincidence or non-coincidence between inspected data is designed to be output or displayed appropriately, by kinds or dimensions, or by a grouping thereof, of a defects object. The same sample is inspected by every time of passing a production step, and a state of data increase or decrease, or coincidence or non-coincidence between the inspected data is designed to be output or displayed.