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US 5,629,805 AGranted
Aligner equipped with annular illumination system for annular illumination light with large illuminance
AssigneeNEC Corporation
InventorShinichi Fukuzawa
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A reduction projecting aligner preliminary forming an annular illumination light from a laser beam for increasing the illuminance transferred to the reticle and utilizing an annular illumination light that is obliquely incident on a reticle so that a pattern image of the reticle is rapidly printed on a photo-resist layer in high resolution.
Claims5
An aligner comprising:
- a light source section for radiating a laser light;
- a reticle holder for retaining a reticle having a transparent pattern;
- an annular illuminating section provided between said light source section and said reticle, and having
- a condenser means for condensing said laser light into an annular illumination light comprising:
- a cone-shaped reflecting mirror placed in an optical path of said laser light and having an outer surface for reflecting said laser light,
- a ring-shaped reflecting mirror having an aperture for transferring said laser light to said outer surface of said cone-shaped reflecting mirror and an inner surface for reflecting the laser light reflected from said outer surface of said cone-shaped reflecting mirror for producing said annular illumination light, and
- a fly-eye lens for shaping said annular illumination light into parallel rays;
- an oblique illumination means for obliquely illuminating said reticle with said annular illumination light so as to cause an oblique-incident 0-order light component of said annular illumination light to transfer a pattern image of said transparent pattern formed in said reticle;
- and
- a movable stage for holding a photo-sensitive layer to which said transparent pattern is transferred.
7 more elements
An aligner comprising:
- a light source for radiating a laser light;
- a circular cone-shaped reflecting mirror placed on an optical path of said laser light and having an outer surface for reflecting said laser light thereon;
- a ring-shaped reflecting mirror having:
- a center aperture for transferring said laser light to said outer surface of said circular cone-shaped reflecting mirror, and
- an inner surface defining said center aperture and reflecting said laser light reflected from said outer surface of said circular cone-shaped reflecting mirror for forming an annular illumination light;
- a fly-eye lens for shaping said annular illumination light into parallel rays;
- a plate member having a transparent annular aperture, said parallel rays of said annular illumination light obliquely passing said transparent annular aperture;
- a reticle holder for retaining a reticle having a transparent pattern;
- a condenser lens for causing said parallel rays of said annular illumination light to be obliquely incident on said reticle so that an oblique-incident 0-order light component of said annular illumination light carriers a pattern image of said transparent pattern;
- a stage holding a photo-sensitive layer covering a semiconductor wafer, said oblique-incident 0-order light component printing said pattern image in said photo-sensitive layer;
- and
- a projection lens unit positioned between said reticle holder and said photo-sensitive layer.
9 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.