To shorten the time required by an image acquiring device for acquiring the images of a plurality of areas to be inspected on a semiconductor substrate and, in addition, to reduce the amount of stored data.

The image acquiring device forms the images of the plurality of areas to be inspected on the substrate on a CCD by individually enlarging the images by means of a lens array. Consequently, the device can simultaneously acquire the enlarged images of the areas to be inspected. In addition, the areas 812 corresponding to the areas to be inspected are positioned to about the centers of the areas 811 corresponding to the lenses of the lens array in the images acquired by means of the CCD and only areas 813 excluding the peripheral edge sections of the areas 811 are preserved as images to be preserved. Consequently, the time required for acquiring the images can be shortened remarkably and the amount of the preserved data is reduced significantly as compared with the case where the enlarged image of one area to be inspected is acquired at one time of image pickup.