Use of wafer brightness to monitor laser anneal process and laser anneal tool

A method is provided for monitoring the laser annealing of a semiconductor wafer. After annealing, images of many regions of the wafer are captured. The surface brightness of these regions is measured by computer, and statistics of these surface brightness measurements are determined, such as their mean and their standard deviation. Using a correlation between the surface brightnesses and the electrical resistance of the annealed wafer, the surface brightness statistics can be used to determine whether the annealing process resulted in a wafer that meets end user specifications. The surface brightness statistics can also be used to monitor the annealing tool, both during manufacturing and periodically or following maintenance.