Abstract: An improved method, apparatus, and control/guiding software for localizing, characterizing, and correcting defects in integrated circuits, particularly open or resistive contact/via defects and metal bridging defects, using FIB technology. An apparatus for identifying an abnormal discontinuity in a contact/via in an integrated circuit comprising a focused ion beam system to scan the ion beam over the contact/via to do remove or deposit via material, a detector to collect a secondary particle signal from the contact/via material that gets removed, a sub-system for storing the secondary particle signal from the contact/via in time as well as x-y scan position, a sub-system for correlating secondary particle signals and identifying discontinuities in the correlated secondary particle signals, a sub-system for optimizing the display of the abnormal discontinuity; and a computer to implement software aspects of the system.