FREQUENCY DOMAIN ENHANCEMENT OF LOW-SNR FLAT RESIDUE/STAIN DEFECTS FOR EFFECTIVE DETECTION

An inspection system is disclosed. The system includes a controller communicatively couplable with an inspection sub-system configured to receive illumination from a sample and generate image data. The controller includes one or more processors configured to execute program instructions causing the one or more processors to receive the image data, wherein the image data comprises at least one image, downsample the at least one image using bicubic interpolation or bilinear interpolation, transform the at least one image from a spatial domain to a frequency domain using a Fourier transform, filter frequencies higher than a threshold frequency from the at least one image, transform the at least one image from the frequency domain to the spatial domain using an inverse Fourier transform, and detect one or more flat-pattern defects in the at least one image.