Method of inspecting an mura defect in a pattern and apparatus used for the same

Abstract

A mura defect inspection apparatus 10 having an illuminating unit 12 which irradiates light onto a photomask 50 having a chip 55 on the surface thereof, the chip is formed with a repeated pattern that a unit pattern is regularly arranged, and a photoreceptor 13 which receives scattered light generated at the edge part of the unit pattern of the repeated pattern on the chip of the photomask and converts it to received light data, wherein the received light data is analyzed to detect a mura defect generated in the repeated pattern, wherein the illuminating unit irradiates light that is emitted from an illumination light source and has a orientation property of the rays almost parallel, the light having a parallelism within an angle of 2°, for example, onto a repeated pattern 51 on the chip 55 of the photomask 50. This application claims foreign priority based on Japanese Patent application No. 2004 - 106462 , filed Mar. 31, 2004 , the contents of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to a pattern uneven defect inspection method and a pattern uneven defect inspection device for detecting pattern uneven defects in video devices, or detecting pattern uneven defects in photomasks used for manufacturing patterns of video devices. Background technique [0002] Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. H10-300447 [0003] Conventionally, in video devices such as imaging devices and display devices, or photomasks used to manufacture these video devices, unevenness defect inspection has been used as an inspection item for patterns formed on the surface. Unevenness defects are errors with different regularities that unexpectedly occur in regularly arranged patterns, and occur due to certain reasons in the manufacturing process and the like. [0004] In an imaging device or a display device, if there is an unevenness defect, sensitivity unevenness and display unevenness may occur,...

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Problems solved by technology

[0006] However, since this visual inspection has a problem that the inspection result varies depending on the operator, for example, an uneven defect inspection device such as Patent Document 1 has been proposed.

[0008] However, in the case of illuminating light sources such as fluorescent lamps and halogen lamps that irradiate non-directional diffuse light, the light cannot make the scattered light scattered at the edge of the unit pattern directional, and it comes from other parts other than the edge. The influence of reflected light, etc. increases, so uneven defects are difficult to appear

Therefore, there is a problem that unevenness defects cannot be detected with high accuracy in the conventional unevenness defect inspection device.

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