PURPOSE: To always inspect the clean surface of a wafer, by providing a circular cleaning gas blowoff port outside the circular vacuum suction sections of the sample holding stage of a pattern inspection device concentrically to the sections.
CONSTITUTION: A pattern inspection device for a wafer or the like comprises a block A made of a scanning electron microscope, and a block B made of a sample holding stage having a plurality of circular vacuum suction sections 1S, 2S, 3S concentric to each other around the inspected region of a sample 18. A circular cleaning gas blowoff section 25 and a circular cleaning gas blowoff port 5P are provided outside the circular vacuum suction sections 1SW3S concentrically thereto. A cleaning gas is supplied to the cleaning gas blowoff section 25 so that the gas is blown onto the surface of the sample 18 at the same time as the vacuum suction through the sections 1SW3S. The surface of the sample 18 is thus always kept clean as a pattern on the sample is inspected. This results in enhancing the reliability of the inspection.
YASUDA HIROSHI
KAWASHIMA KENICHI
