Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Naoki Ayata

Seiji Saito

Noboru Koumura

Hidetoshi Suzuki

Kunitaka Ozawa

Mitsuaki Seki

Yasushi Sato

Yasushi Takatori

Yoshiaki Shirato

Motoharu Fujii

Bunei Hamasaki

Masao Kosugi

Kazuo Takahashi

Yutaka Hirai

Katsunori Hatanaka

Shunichi Uzawa

Mitsugu Yamamura

Yuichi Yamada

Hideki Nogawa

Yasuyoshi Yamada

Hiroki Suzukawa

Tadashi Konuki

Koji Kazuma

Tokuichi Tsunekawa

Takashi Uchiyama

Nobuyoshi Tanaka

Susumu Matsumura

Kazuya Matsumoto

Masaaki Imaizumi

Seiichi Matsumoto

Koji Uda

Eiji Nishimori

Yukitoshi Ohkubo

Yasuteru Ichida

Ryuichi Sato

Mitsuo Takeda

Akiya Nakai

Masanori Numata

Takashi Matsumura

Yoji Matsufuji

Kazuyuki Oda

Bunei Hamazaki

Shigemoto Tazawa

Hajime Igarashi

A liquid droplet forming method is used with an apparatus that includes a liquid jet recording head having a plurality of blocks of thermal elements, each of which blocks includes a plurality of the thermal elements arranged on a substrate at a pitch of at least ten thermal elements per millimeter, with each thermal element ejecting a liquid droplet from the head upon application thereto of a drive signal pulse. Each drive signal pulse comprises a multi-part signal that includes a first part that pre-heats the liquid to an extent that a droplet is not ejected followed by a second part which heats the pre-heated liquid to an extent that a bubble is formed and a liquid droplet is ejected from the head. The plural blocks of thermal elements are driven in accordance with the generated drive signal pulses in a time-division manner such that no two blocks are driven simultaneously. In addition, the thermal elements in each block are driven in successive activation cycles by permitting time-divided application of drive signal pulses to all of the thermal elements in each block during each cycle.

Liquid jet recording using a multi-part drive signal sequentially applied to plural blocks of thermal elements

An information recording apparatus has a large plurality of heat energy generating elements corresponding to a like plurality of ejection ports for ejecting ink. The heat energy generating elements cause a change in the state of the ink by heating the ink in response to a drive signal, thereby ejecting ink droplets from corresponding ejection ports. A selection signal sequentially selects from among plural groups of plural heat energy generating element and an information storing device stores recording information, portions of which correspond respectively to selected groups of the heat energy generating elements. A drive circuit supplies drive signals to the selected groups of heat energy generating elements, the drive signals for each group being supplied in accordance with the corresponding stored portion of the recording information.

Information recording apparatus that records by driving plural groups or

An information recording apparatus comprises a recording unit for recording on a recording medium and control means for controlling the recording unit to twice eject droplets to the same position on the recording medium so that the tone of the recording is emphasized. In another aspect of the disclosure, an image forming apparatus includes a storage unit for storing recording material, an image forming unit in which an image is formed without contacting the recording material and a discharge unit for discharging the recording material on which the image has been formed. A transporting mechanism transports the recording material from the storage unit, through the image forming unit to the discharge unit along a U-shaped transporting path.

Recording apparatus which twice ejects droplets to the same position and

A mark position detecting method and apparatus, suitably usable in a semiconductor device manufacturing exposure apparatus, called a stepper, prints images of a pattern of a reticle upon different shot areas on a semiconductor wafer, and aligns the reticle and the wafer. In this method, fuzzy reasoning is made by using, for example, a membership function which empirically represents the relationship between a mark signal and an alignment result. By using a conclusion of the fuzzy reasoning, the position of the mark is detected. Thus, the alignment accuracy can be improved significantly.

Method and apparatus for detecting position of a mark

An alignment apparatus includes a first off-axis alignment optical system having a magnification, and a second off-axis alignment optical system having a magnification higher than that of the first off-axis alignment optical system, wherein the apparatus is operable in a global alignment mode using the second off-axis alignment optical system. In another aspect, an alignment apparatus which includes a first off-axis alignment optical system having a magnification, a second off-axis alignment optical system having a magnification higher than that of the first off-axis alignment optical system, and a TTL alignment optical system, wherein the alignment apparatus is operable in a global alignment mode using the second off-axis alignment optical system and is operable in another global alignment mode using the TTL optical alignment system.

Alignment and exposure apparatus and method for manufacture of

A system for controlling operation of a fine pattern printing apparatus. The system including a command storing portion in which a plurality of unit-operation instructing commands capable of instructing execution of corresponding unit operations which are components of the pattern printing operation of the apparatus and at least one sequential operation instructing command including a combination of at least a predetermined portion of the unit-operation instructing commands are stored. A command selecting portion for allowing selection of the commands stored in the command storing portion; a sequence setting portion cooperative with the command selecting portion so as to set, in the command storing portion, a desired sequential operation instructing command formed by a plurality of unit-operation instructing commands each of which is stored in the command storing portion. The sequential operation instructing command set in the storing portion by the sequence setting portion is selectable by the command selecting portion and operation controlling portion cooperative with the command selecting portion so as to control the operation of the apparatus in accordance with such one of the commands stored in the storing portion that is selected by the selection portion.

Control system for a fine pattern printing apparatus

An alignment apparatus includes a first off-axis alignment optical system having a magnification, and a second off-axis alignment optical system having a magnification higher than that of the first off-axis alignment optical system, wherein the apparatus is operable in a global alignment mode using the second off-axis alignment optical system. In another aspect, an alignment apparatus includes a first off-axis alignment optical system having a magnification, a second off-axis alignment optical system having a magnification higher than that of the first off-axis alignment optical system, and a TTL alignment optical system, wherein the alignment apparatus is operable in a global alignment mode using the second off-axis alignment optical system and is operable in another global alignment mode using the TTL optical alignment system.

An information read-out and recording apparatus includes an optical information read-out device for converting optical information into electrical information signals. A serial-input/parallel-output shift register stores information signals from the optical information read-out device and a latch circuit stores information from the shift register for supply to a recording device. The recording device records on a recording medium in accordance with the output of the latch circuit, which parallelly stores the contents of the shift register after a predetermined number of bits of information have been serially stored in the shift register.

Information read-out and recording apparatus

A copying apparatus is provided with an image reading device for reading image information on an original as electrical image signals, a manually operable device for designating an arbitrary area of the original and apparatus for outputting a gate signal in accordance with the area designated by the manually operable device. In response to the gate signal thus formed, a gate device extracts from the electrical signals generated by the reading device image signals corresponding to the designated area which signals are stored in a memory device. A recording device can then record an image in the designated area on plural sheets of recording medium in response to repeated readout of the image signals from the memory device.

Copying apparatus capable of designating image areas

Mark detecting method and apparatus usable, for example, in a semiconductor exposure apparatus such as a stepper for printing a pattern of a reticle upon a semiconductor wafer, for detecting, by using an image sensor, an alignment mark provided on a reticle or wafer for alignment of the same. Plural search marks are provided two-dimensionally around the alignment mark, each search mark having a first pattern and one or more second patterns indicative of the position of the alignment mark. When at least one first pattern of the search mark is caught by an image pickup device, the reticle is displaced in accordance with the positional information as indicated by the second pattern of the search mark. This brings the alignment mark within the image pickup region of the image sensor. The alignment mark is subsequenlty used to accurately align the reticle with a predetermined position. Thus, the time required for completing the reticle alignment can be reduced remarkably.

Mark detecting method and apparatus

An alignment apparatus including a first off-axis alignment optical system having a magnification, and a second off-axis alignment optical system having a magnification higher than that of the first off-axis alignment optical system, wherein the apparatus is operable in a global alignment mode using the second off-axis alignment optical system. In another aspect, there is provided an alignment apparatus which includes a first off-axis alignment optical system having a magnification, a second off-axis alignment optical system having a magnification higher than that of the first off-axis alignment optical system, and a TTL alignment optical system, wherein the alignment apparatus is operable in a global alignment mode using the second off-axis alignment optical system and is operable in another global alignment mode using the TTL optical alignment system.

A mark detecting method and device suitably applicable to the alignment of a reticle in a semiconductor device manufacturing exposure apparatus, called a stepper, is disclosed. A mark is provided by repeated patterns having specific pitches. These patterns are set so that at least one pitch of the patterns differs, on a light-receiving surface of an image sensor which receives an image of the mark, from a multiple, by an integral number, of the sampling pitch (pitch of picture elements) of the image sensor. In one preferred form, the mark is formed by repeated patterns of a number N (.gtoreq.2), wherein at least one pitch Pp of the patterns satisfies, on the light-receiving surface of the image sensor, a relationship Pp=(m+n/N).times.Pix where m is an arbitrary number, n is an integral number which satisfies 1.ltoreq.n.ltoreq.N, and Pix is the sampling pitch of the image sensor. The image of such a mark is photoelectrically converted to thereby determine the position of the mark. With the proposed concept, any error which might be caused upon quantization of the mark image by the picture elements of the image sensor can be canceled or compensated at the time of calculation of the mark center. Therefore, the precision of the mark center detection can be improved.

Method of detecting position of a mark

A method of aligning a semiconductor wafer, usable in a step-and-repeat type exposure apparatus for projecting, in a reduced scale, images of a pattern formed on a reticle upon different shot areas on the semiconductor wafer in a predetermined sequence. According to this alignment method, the wafer is moved stepwise before the initiation of step-and-repeat exposures of the shot areas on the wafer and in accordance with a predetermined layout grid concerning the sites of the shot areas on the wafer. While moving the wafer stepwise in this manner, any positional deviation of each of some of the shot areas with respect to the layout grid is measured by use of a reduction projection lens system and, from the results of measurement, a corrected grid is prepared according to which grid the amount of stepwise movement of the wafer to be made for the step-and-repeat exposures thereof is determined. By this, for the exposures, the wafer can be moved stepwise exactly in accordance with the actual layout of the shot areas. Sample shot areas which are the subject of measurement can be selected under predetermined conditions. Additionally, of the values obtained as a result of the measurement, any extraordinary one or ones may be determined on the basis of the variance and then are excluded at the time of calculations made to determine the corrected grid. Thus, the stepwise movement of the wafer for the step-and-repeat exposures thereof can be controlled with higher precision.

Alignment method usable in a step-and-repeat type exposure apparatus for

A printing apparatus or system has CCDs for reading out image data from an original or originals, a memory for storing the image data, a plurality of recording sections with recording heads, a control for controlling the overall circuitry and mechanical parts. A desired number of copies in black or in color can be produced within a short period of time in accordance with the size of the original image and/or color. A red image which does not require high resolution as much as a black image is automatically reproduced with lower resolution while maintaining high resolution at black portion of the same image. A plurality of recording sections may be equally used for printing only a small number of copies.

Printing apparatus for system

A mask aligner includes a TV image pick-up device having a wide field angle and picking up the image of a wafer detection pattern on an image pick-up station to generate TV signals at the output, a fine alignment device for detecting a positional deviation of the wafer relative to a mask in an exposure station with the detected result being used to align the wafer with the mask, a transport stage for carrying and transporting the wafer from the image pick-up station to the exposure station, a processing device for determining the positional deviation of the wafer relative to the reference position on the image pick-up stage in accordance with the TV signals, and a drive for moving the transport stage so as to remove the positional deviation of the wafer relative to the reference position of the exposure station.

Growing community of inventors

Machida, Japan

Naoki Ayata