A method and apparatus for intelligent
semiconductor defect analysis, relating to the
semiconductor manufacturing field, are disclosed. This invention acquires a design
layout, inspection images obtained from an inspection
machine, and corresponding re-inspection images obtained from a re-inspection
machine, and aligns them using coordinates. Based on the coordinate alignment results, a defect pattern template is generated. The defect pattern template includes defect regions extracted from the re-inspection images, the corresponding positions of the defect regions in the design
layout, and the surrounding design environment information of the corresponding positions in the design
layout. A
hierarchical search is performed using a geometric hash
algorithm to locate potential defect locations similar to the defect pattern template in the entire
chip's design layout. Precise defect statistics are performed, matching the potential defect locations with the full defect
list provided by the inspection
machine to determine the total number of specific defect types on the entire
wafer. This invention achieves a transformation from sampling analysis to comprehensive intelligent diagnosis, greatly improving the efficiency and accuracy of
semiconductor manufacturing process monitoring.