The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 04, 2001
Filed:
Nov. 28, 2000
Yuji Imai, Saitama-ken, JP;
Nikon Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A projection exposure apparatus detects positions at the measurement points (P,-P,) in the Z-direction on the shot area of the wafer W, and obtains the distribution of the irregularity of the shot area based on the detected result and the pre-known process structure data. For example, when the pattern leaving the narrowest line width is exposed in the pattern area (,B), the pattern area (,B) is made as a focusing reference plane and the difference in level (Z,−Z,) of another area of which reference is pattern area (,B) is added to the level of the best image plane (,) as an offset value. The pattern area (,B) is focused to the best image plane (,) by fitting image plane (,A) to the exposure surface.