Exposure apparatus and device manufacturing method
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsHidetoshi Nishigori, Naoto Sano
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An exposure apparatus for transferring, by exposure, a pattern of a mask onto a wafer, includes a pulse light source and a scanning system for relatively and scanningly moving the mask and the wafer relative to an illumination region to be defined by pulses of light to be sequentially provided by the pulse light source, wherein the number of pulses for exposure of the wafer is determined on the basis of information representing a relation between the pulse number and exposure non-uniformness, and wherein the pulse number is expressed by L/.DELTA.X where L is the width of the illumination region in a scan direction and .DELTA.X is the amount of relative displacement of the illumination region moving in the light emission interval of one pulse.
Claims8
An exposure apparatus comprising:
- a pulse light source for providing pulse light for scan exposure of a substrate, wherein, for the scan exposure, the substrate is moved relative to an irradiation region to be irradiated with the pulse light from said pulse light source;
- and
- adjusting means for detecting, on the basis of an intensity distribution of the pulse light with respect to a substrate movement direction, a relation between (i) the number of light pulses received by an exposure region on the substrate, which exposure region is exposed to the pulse light, during a period in which the exposure region passes the irradiation region, and (ii) exposure non-uniformness on the exposure region, said adjusting means adjusting, on the basis of information related to the detected relation and a desired exposure amount on the exposure region, at least one of the number of light pulses received by the exposure region during the period in which the exposure region passes the irradiation region and the intensity distribution of the pulse light with respect to the substrate movement direction, wherein the intensity distribution of the pulse light with respect to the substrate movement direction has a substantially isosceles trapezoidal shape, and wherein a relation L.sub.2 =(2N-1).times.L.sub.1 is satisfied, where L.sub.1 is a width of a side of a region in the intensity distribution, in which region the intensity in the intensity distribution changes, L.sub.2 is a width of a region in the intensity distribution, in which region the intensity is linear, and N is a natural number.
A device manufacturing method for manufacturing a device, including a process for exposing a substrate being moved, with pulse light from a pulse light source, said method comprising the steps of:
- detecting, on the basis of an intensity distribution of the pulse light with respect to a substrate movement direction, a relation between (i) the number of light pulses received by an exposure region on the substrate, which exposure region is exposed to the pulse light, during a period in which the exposure region passes an irradiation region irradiated with the pulse light from the pulse light source, and (ii) exposure non-uniformness on the exposure region;
- and
- adjusting, by use of adjusting means and on the basis of information related to the detected relation and a desired exposure amount on the exposure region, at least one of the number of light pulses received by the exposure region during the period in which the exposure region passes the irradiation region and the intensity distribution of the pulse light with respect to the substrate movement direction, wherein the intensity distribution of the pulse light with respect to the substrate movement direction has a substantially isosceles trapezoidal shape, and wherein a relation L.sub.2 =(2N-1).times.L.sub.1 is satisfied, where L.sub.1 is a width of a side of a region in the intensity distribution, in which region the intensity in the intensity distribution changes, L.sub.2 is a width of a region in the intensity distribution, in which region the intensity is linear, and N is a natural number.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.