Method of exposing a peripheral part of wafer

Abstract

A method of exposing a peripheral part of wafer is used for a fine pattern formation process in the processing of ICs, LSIs and other electronics elements, to remove, in a development step, an unncessary portion of a photoresist coated on a semiconductor substrate, typically a silicon wafer, or a substrate consisting of a dielectric, a metal or an insulator, from a peripheral part of the substrate. In the method for exposing a peripheral part of wafer, the wafer edge is detected using a sensor, and the light emission end of an optical fiber lightguide is controlled to expose a fixed distance from the edge of wafer according to a signal from the sensor. It is thus possible to expose a peripheral part of wafer having a predetermined width with high accuracy. In addition, the wafer centering mechanism and orientation flat detection/positioning mechanism employed in the prior art are unncessary. It is thus possible to provide a method exposing a peripheral part of wafer which can greatly reduce the processing time and has extremely high accuracy and efficiency.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.