Inventors:
Scott Andrews - Medfield MA, US
Neil Judell - Newtonville MA, US
Bills Richard Earl - Tucson AZ, US
Timothy R. Tiemeyer - Providence RI, US
Assignee:
KLA-Tencor Corporation - San Jose CA
International Classification:
G01N 21/00
Abstract:
A surface inspection system, as well as related components and methods, are provided. The surface inspection system includes a beam source subsystem, a beam scanning subsystem, a workpiece movement subsystem, an optical collection and detection subsystem, and a processing subsystem. The signal processing subsystem comprises a series of data acquisition nodes, each dedicated to a collection detection module and a plurality of data reduction nodes, made available on a peer to peer basis to each data acquisition nodes. Improved methods for detecting signal in the presence of noise are also provided.