Metrology

Metrology and inspection are the two distinct measurement disciplines that together keep a semiconductor fab in overall process control: metrology quantitatively measures specific physical dimensions or material properties, while inspection instead searches more broadly for discrete defects or genuine anomalies without necessarily measuring any specific dimensional or material-property value at all. This metrology-versus-inspection distinction matters because the two disciplines generally use genuinely different measurement techniques and are typically deployed at different specific points within an overall semiconductor process flow, each one addressing a different specific process-control question.