An imprinting system according to an embodiment includes a first measuring device measuring an intensity of light reflected from an end of a shot area of a monitor substrate being an area on which imprinting has been performed, a dripping condition generating device generating a dripping condition of a resin-based mask material on the basis of the measured intensity of light, and an imprinting apparatus performing imprinting using the dripping condition. The imprinting apparatus includes a second measuring device measuring an intensity of light reflected from an end of a first shot area of a production substrate being an area on which imprinting has been performed, and a control unit adjusting arrangement of droplets of a resin-based mask material ejected on a second shot area of the production substrate being an area on which imprinting is to be performed on the basis of an intensity of light reflected from an end of the first shot area.

An extreme ultraviolet light generation device includes: a target supply unit including a nozzle through which a target substance in a liquid form is output into a chamber; a piezoelectric element configured to vibrate the nozzle under a droplet connection condition to regularly generate a droplet of the target substance; and a control unit configured to perform search processing of changing a drive condition of the piezoelectric element to search for a drive condition of the piezoelectric element corresponding to the droplet connection condition and configured to set a drive condition of the piezoelectric element used for generation of extreme ultraviolet light based on a result of the search processing. The control unit preliminarily drives the piezoelectric element before performing the search processing and starts the search processing after performing the preliminary drive.

A substrate processing system includes: a measuring unit provided detachably with respect to a placement portion of a placement stage; a measuring jig for measuring a processing liquid; a liquid processing unit including a supplier which supplies the processing liquid to the measuring jig; a transfer mechanism for transferring the measuring jig between the measuring unit and the liquid processing unit; and a controller. The controller executes: a process of transferring the measuring jig in the measuring unit from the measuring unit to the liquid processing unit; a process of ejecting the processing liquid from the supplier to the measuring jig; a third process of transferring the measuring jig from the liquid processing unit to the measuring unit; and a fourth process of calculating an ejection amount of the processing liquid based on a measurement value in the measuring unit.

A system includes a plate configured for mounting of a reflective extreme ultra-violet (EUV) mask thereon and a zone plate configured to divide EUV light into zero-order light and first-order light and to pass the zero-order light and the first-order light to the reflective EUV mask. The system further includes a detector configured to receive EUV light reflected by the EUV mask and including a zero-order light detection region configured to generate a first image signal and a first-order light detection region configured to generate a second image signal, and a calculator configured to generate a compensated third image signal from the first image signal and the second image signal. The third image signal may be used to determine a distance between mask patterns of the EUV mask.

A method of controlling a computer process for designing or verifying a photolithographic component includes building a source tree including nodes of the process, including dependency relationships among the nodes, defining, for some nodes, at least two different process conditions, expanding the source tree to form an expanded tree, including generating a separate node for each different defined process condition, and duplicating dependent nodes having an input relationship to each generated separate node, determining respective computing hardware requirements for processing the node, selecting computer hardware constraints based on capabilities of the host computing system, determining, based on the requirements and constraints and on dependency relations in the expanded tree, an execution sequence for the computer process, and performing the computer process on the computing system.

A method for monitoring a lithographic process, and associated lithographic apparatus. The method includes obtaining height variation data relating to a substrate supported by a substrate support and fitting a regression through the height variation data, the regression approximating the shape of the substrate; residual data between the height variation data and the regression is determined; and variation of the residual data is monitored over time. The residual data may be deconvolved based on known features of the substrate support.

A method, system and program for determining a fingerprint of a parameter. The method includes determining a contribution from a device out of a plurality of devices to a fingerprint of a parameter. The method includes obtaining parameter data and usage data, wherein the parameter data is based on measurements for multiple substrates having been processed by the plurality of devices, and the usage data indicates which of the devices out of the plurality of the devices were used in the processing of each substrate; and determining the contribution using the usage data and parameter data.

A method for determining a preferred control strategy relating to control of a manufacturing process for manufacturing an integrated circuit. The method includes: obtaining process data associated with a design of said integrated circuit; and obtaining a plurality of candidate control strategies configured to control the manufacturing process based on the process data, each candidate control strategy including an associated cost metric based on an associated requirement to implement the candidate control strategy. A quality metric related to an expected performance of the manufacturing process is determined for each candidate control strategies, and a preferred control strategy is selected based on the determined quality metrics and associated cost metrics for each candidate control strategy.

A method for monitoring a lithographic process, and associated lithographic apparatus. The method includes obtaining height variation data relating to a substrate supported by a substrate support and fitting a regression through the height variation data, the regression approximating the shape of the substrate; residual data between the height variation data and the regression is determined; and variation of the residual data is monitored over time. The residual data may be deconvolved based on known features of the substrate support.

According to some embodiments, the present disclosure provides a method for determining wafer inspection parameters. The method includes identifying an area of interest in an IC design layout, performing an inspection simulation on the area of interest by generating a plurality of simulated optical images from the area of interest using a plurality of optical modes, and selecting, based on the simulated optical images, at least one of the optical modes to use for inspecting an area of a wafer that is fabricated based on the area of interest in the IC design layout.