US Patent Issued to Hitachi High-Tech on Feb. 24 for "Defect observation method, apparatus, and program" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 24 -- United States Patent no. 12,564,016, issued on Feb. 24, was assigned to Hitachi High-Tech Corp. (Tokyo).

"Defect observation method, apparatus, and program" was invented by Naoaki Kondo (Tokyo), Yuki Doi (Tokyo), Atsushi Miyamoto (Tokyo), Hideki Nakayama (Tokyo) and Hirohiko Kitsuki (Tokyo).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A defect observation method includes, as steps executed by a computer system, a first step of acquiring, as a bevel image, an image captured using defect candidate coordinates in a bevel portion as an imaging position by using a microscope or an imaging apparatus; and a second step of detecting a defect in the bevel image. The second step includes a...