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. 16, 2003
Filed:
Oct. 22, 2001
Applicant:
Inventor:
Fuyuhiko Inoue, San Mateo, CA (US);
Assignee:
Nikon Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G03B 2/732 ; G03B 2/742 ; G03B 2/744 ; G03B 2/758 ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
G03B 2/732 ; G03B 2/742 ; G03B 2/744 ; G03B 2/758 ;
Abstract
The method for positioning two stages during semiconductor wafer processing facilitates the use of two stages to improve system throughput by decreasing the rest-time of certain system components. While a typical single-stage apparatus requires that each step in the process be performed serially, this invention allows an amount of parallel processing with each stage at different steps of the process, and thus improves system throughput.