Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Hitachi, Ltd.

Olympus Optical Company, Ltd.

Hiroshi Kurosawa

Kunitaka Ozawa

Nobutoshi Mizusawa

Noriyasu Hasegawa

Keiji Yoshimura

Ryuichi Ebinuma

Koji Uda

Shunichi Uzawa

Takao Kariya

Izumi Ochiai

Shinichi Hara

Yutaka Tanaka

Kazunori Iwamoto

Yuji Chiba

Shin Matsui

Mitsuji Marumo

Yoshio Asahino

Masayuki A Suzuki

Toshiki Ito

Shigeyuki Suda

Noriyuki Nose

Eigo Kawakami

Isamu Shimoda

Mitsuaki Amemiya

Shigeru Terashima

Makiko Mori

Tetsuzo Mori

Shinichi Dosaka

Hiroaki Noda

Yoichi Wakabayashi

Shumichi Uzawa

Shinichirou Uno

A film formation device for forming a film of a composition on the substrate by irradiating the composition on the substrate with light, includes an optical modulation unit for forming a distribution of an integrated light amount of the light on the substrate, and a control unit for controlling the optical modulation unit, in which the control unit controls the distribution of the integrated light amount of the optical modulation unit on the basis of residual film ratio characteristics of the composition and at least one of a curved shape of an imaging plane of an original template used in a subsequent process and a surface shape of a base film formed on the substrate.

Film formation device, film formation method, and article manufacturing method

An article manufacturing method includes a first formation step of forming a focus compensation film on a substrate, a second formation step of forming a resist layer on the focus compensation film, and a transfer step of transferring a pattern of an original to the resist layer using an exposure apparatus. In the first formation step, the focus compensation film is formed such that the focus compensation film has a top surface shape corresponding to an image surface shape of the exposure apparatus.

Article manufacturing method, film forming method, mold manufacturing method, exposure apparatus, information processing method, and non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a program

A film forming apparatus for forming a film on a substrate includes a driver configured to bring a curable composition arranged on the substrate and a flat surface into contact with each other, a heater configured to heat the curable composition by electromagnetic waves to reduce the viscosity of the curable composition and make the curable composition conform to the flat surface, and a curing device configured to form a film made of a cured product of the curable composition by curing the curable composition in a state in which the curable composition conforms to the flat surface.

Film forming apparatus, film forming method, and method of manufacturing article

An imprint apparatus includes a mold stage that holds a mold, a substrate stage that holds a substrate, a dispensing device that dispenses resin on the substrate, and a controller configured to obtain a result of a foreign substance inspection conducted on the substrate. In a case that the obtained result indicates existence of a foreign substance, the controller controls the dispensing device to dispense the resin onto the foreign substance, cures the dispensed resin without bringing the resin into contact with the mold, controls the dispensing device to dispense the resin again on a first chip region of the substrate where the foreign substance and the cured resin thereon exists, and performs imprint processing to the first chip region.

Imprint apparatus for imprinting when a foreign substance exists on a substrate to be imprinted

An imprint method includes an inspection step of inspecting a substrate to obtain information of a foreign substance on the substrate; and a film forming step of forming a film covering the foreign substance, using the information of a foreign substance on the substrate, wherein the film forming step is performed before the contact step.

Imprint method, imprint apparatus, and article manufacturing method

A scanning exposure apparatus for performing exposure of a substrate to light includes a projection optical system to project light from the original onto the substrate, a stage to hold the substrate and to move in a scanning direction, and a focus detector to detect a position of a surface region of the substrate in a direction of the optical axis. The apparatus (i) detects the position of the surface region with respect to each of a plurality of measurement points and with respect to each of a plurality of shot regions of the substrate, (ii) averages the detected positions, (iii) obtains a function which approximates the averaged positions, (iv) calculates a difference between each of the averaged positions and a value of the obtained function, (v) offsets a detected position with a corresponding one of the calculated differences, (vi) controls a position of the stage based on the offset positions, and (vii) logs the obtained function.

Scanning exposure technique

An apparatus including a stage configured to be moved. A first laser interferometer measures a position of the stage in a first direction. A second laser interferometer measures a position of the stage in the first direction. A control unit (i) obtains a position of the stage based on an output of one of the first and second laser interferometers, (ii) controls a position of the stage based on the obtained position of the stage, (iii) performs switching of one of the first and second laser interferometers to the other of the first and second laser interferometers while the stage is moved at a constant velocity in the first direction, (iv) calculates a distance by which the stage is to be moved during a time interval, and (v) sets an initial value of the other of the first and second laser interferometers after the switching, based on a position measured by the one of the first and second laser interferometers at a start time of the time interval and the calculated distance.

Stage controller and exposure method in which position of the stage is controlled based on position measurements of first and second laser interferometers

An alignment apparatus which drives to a target position a stage capable of moving at least in a two-dimensional direction. A first measurement device and a second measurement device have a function of measuring positions of the stage in one direction from different positions, a switching device performs a switching operation for switching the first measurement device to the second measurement device, and a controller sets an initial value for the second position measurement device, which is used after the switching operation, based on the position of the stage finally measured by the first position measurement device before the switching operation.

Alignment apparatus, control method thereof, exposure apparatus and method of manufacturing semiconductor device by exposure apparatus controlled by the same control method

An exposure apparatus exposes a substrate to light via a reticle while the substrate and the reticle are scanned based on information regarding a shape of the reticle. A projection optical system projects a reticle pattern onto the substrate and a reticle stage holds the reticle and moves in the scanning direction. A measurement system measures a position of the reticle surface in the optical axis direction. Information is generated on a position of each measurement point of the surface in the scanning direction with respect to which the measurement system measures a surface position based on pattern information. The measurement performed with respect to each measurement point is used to obtain reticle shape information. The position of the reticle stage and operation of the measurement system is controlled based on the generated information and the reticle stage position information.

Exposure apparatus, reticle shape measurement apparatus and method

A scanning exposure apparatus for performing exposure of a substrate to light via an original while the substrate and the original are scanned. The apparatus includes a projection optical system to project light from the original onto the substrate, a stage to hold the substrate and to move in a scanning direction perpendicular to an optical axis of the projection optical system, and a focus detector to detect a position of a surface region of the substrate in a direction of the optical axis. The apparatus is configured (i) to detect the position of the surface region with respect to each of a plurality of measurement points and with respect to each of a plurality of shot regions of the substrate, (ii) to average the detected positions over the plurality of shot regions with respect to each of the plurality of measurement points, (iii) to obtain a function which approximates the averaged positions respectively obtained, (iv) to calculate a difference between each of the averaged positions and a value of the obtained function with respect to each of the plurality of measurement points, (v) to offset a position detected by the focus detector with respect to each of the plurality of measurement points with a corresponding one of the calculated differences, and (vi) to control a position of the stage based on each of the offset positions during the exposure.

A scanning exposure apparatus for exposing a substrate to a pattern of a reticle. The apparatus includes an exposure system which exposes the substrate to the pattern with respect to a unit region, to which the pattern is transferred, of the substrate, by relatively moving the reticle and the substrate, a control system which controls an operation of the exposure system, the control system determining whether a condition of an exposure performed by the exposure system is within a tolerance during the exposure, and causing the exposure system to continue exposing a remaining region in the unit region of the substrate to the pattern, even after the control system determines that the condition is out of the tolerance for the unit region, and a user interface system which indicates information for identifying the unit region, for which the control system determines that the condition is out of the tolerance, of the substrate.

Exposure apparatus, maintenance method therefor, semiconductor device manufacturing method, and semiconductor manufacturing factory

An alignment apparatus including a first position measuring device and a second position measuring device which measure position information of an object to be controlled, a switching device which switches a position measuring system from the first position measuring device to the second position measuring device, depending on a moving area of the object to be controlled, a correction computing device which performs a correction calculation for a measurement result from the first position measuring device using a first correction parameter set to obtain a current position of the object to be controlled, a predicted coordinate computing unit which predicts coordinates of the object to be controlled on the basis of progress of a correction calculation result from the correction computing device, and a reverse correction computing device which performs a calculation for the coordinates predicted by the predicted coordinate computing unit using a second correction parameter set to obtain a command value for the second position measuring device.

Alignment apparatus, control method therefor, exposure apparatus, device manufacturing method, semiconductor manufacturing factory, and exposure apparatus maintenance method

A scanning exposure apparatus for exposing a substrate to a pattern includes an exposure system which exposes the substrate to the pattern with respect to a unit region of the substrate to which the pattern is transferred, a determination system which determines whether a condition of an exposure performed by the exposure system is allowable during the exposure, and a control system which causes the exposure system to continue exposing a remaining region in the unit region of the substrate to the pattern, even after the determination system makes a negative determination for the unit region.

A scanning exposure apparatus is provided that is capable of increasing the overlay accuracy. Every time a reticle is exchanged, a direction overlay correction table is updated. A control device for the exposure apparatus corrects the target positions (target locus) of a wafer stage on the basis of the direction overlay correction table.

Exposure method and apparatus, and device manufacturing method

A scanning exposure apparatus transfers a pattern of a master to a substrate with slit-shaped exposure light while a master stage holding the master and a substrate stage holding the substrate are moved. The apparatus includes a measurement unit arranged to measure positional sync deviations between the master stage and the substrate stage with respect to each of a plurality of points in an exposure shot region on the substrate during scanning exposure of each of the plurality of points to the light, a first calculation unit arranged to calculate a standard deviation of the positional sync deviations measured by the measurement unit with respect to each of the plurality of points in the exposure shot region, and a second calculation unit arranged to calculate a variation of the standard deviations calculated by the first calculation unit with respect to the exposure shot region. In addition, a process unit is arranged to execute a process based on the vibration calculated by the second calculation unit.

Growing community of inventors

Chiba, Japan

Hiroshi Kurosawa