A method for reducing sticking of an object to a surface used in a lithography process includes receiving, at a control computer, instructions for a tool configured to modify the surface and forming, in a deterministic manner based on the instructions received at the control computer, a modified surface having a furrow and a ridge, wherein the ridge reduces the sticking by reducing a contact surface area of the modified surface. Another apparatus includes a modified surface that includes furrows and ridges forming a reduced contact surface area to reduce a sticking of an object to the modified surface, the ridges having an elastic property that causes the reduced contact surface area to increase when the plurality of ridges is elastically deformed.

Apparatus for and method of controlling a laser system capable of generating bursts of pulses of laser radiation having multiple alternate wavelengths in which an element controlling the wavelength is pre-positioned between bursts to be between its position for generating one wavelength and its position for generating another wavelength. Also disclosed is a system that determines an optimal control waveform for the element to move between positions using quadratic programming, dynamic programing, inversion feed forward control, or iterative learning control. A data storage device such as a pre-populated lookup table or a field programmable gate array may be used to store at least one optimal control parameter for each of a plurality of repetition rates.

In order to provide an imprint device capable of reducing pattern defects, the imprint device which brings a mold into contact with an imprint material on a substrate and transfers a shape of a surface of the mold onto the substrate includes: a mold holding part which holds the mold; a substrate holding part which holds the substrate; and a measuring unit which measures a contact force generated when a part of the mold or the mold holding part is brought into contact with a predetermined contact part, wherein the contact part is installed at a position in a predetermined plane different from a position in the predetermined plane of the substrate held by the substrate holding part and is installed at a height position corresponding to a height of a surface of the substrate held by the substrate holding part.

A method for determining a contribution of a processing apparatus to a fingerprint of a parameter across a substrate, the method including: obtaining a delta image which relates to a difference between a first pupil image associated with inspection of a first feature on the substrate and a second pupil image associated with inspection of a second feature on the substrate, wherein the first and second features have different dose sensitivities; determining a rate of change of the difference in response to a variation of a dose used to form the first and second features; selecting a plurality of pixels within the delta image having a rate of change above a predetermined threshold; and determining the contribution using the determined rate of change and the delta image restricted to the plurality of pixels.

A molding apparatus that molds a composition on a substrate with a mold includes a mold holding unit configured to hold the mold, a substrate holding unit configured to hold the substrate, a first elastic member configured to apply a first elastic force to the mold holding unit in a direction away from the substrate holding unit, and a control unit configured to cause the mold holding unit to move in the direction away from the substrate holding unit in a case where the control unit determines that an abnormality has occurred.

To efficiently search a processing condition of giving a desired target processing result, there is provided a processing condition determination system including a processing apparatus that processes a sample, a processing monitor system that monitors the state of the processing in the processing apparatus, and an analysis system that sets the processing condition of the processing apparatus of giving a target processing result, wherein the system includes a processing condition and result database that stores a set of an explanatory variable that is a processing condition under which the processing apparatus processes a sample and an objective variable that is the processing result obtained by the processing apparatus' processing the sample, and when the processing apparatus processes the sample under the processing condition set using the correlation model derived from the database and it is determined that a probability of failure occurrence becomes high, based on the monitor data of the processing monitor system, the processing apparatus stops the processing under the present processing condition and the analysis system resets a new processing condition.

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 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 maintenance management method for a lithography system according to a viewpoint of the present disclosure includes organizing and saving operating information for each of lithography cells that are each an apparatus group formed of a set of apparatuses and form the lithography system, organizing and saving maintenance information on consumables for each of the lithography cells, calculating a standard maintenance timing for each of the consumables for each of the lithography cells based on the operating information and the maintenance information on the consumable for each of the lithography cells, creating a maintenance schedule plan for each of the lithography cells or for each of manufacturing lines based on the standard maintenance timing, information on a downtime, and information on a loss cost due to the downtime for each of the lithography cells or for each of the manufacturing lines, and outputting the result of the creation of the maintenance schedule plan.

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.