An information processing apparatus includes an acquisition unit configured to acquire information containing first process data indicating a result of a substrate process in a first process condition and second process data indicating a result of a substrate process in a second process condition different from the first process condition, and a display control unit configured to control a display on a display apparatus based on the information acquired by the acquisition unit, wherein the display control unit is configured to display, on the display apparatus, a first screen displaying a first data group in which the first process data is arranged chronologically and a second data group in which the second process data is arranged chronologically, the first screen displaying the first data group in a region and the second data group in another region.

Aspects of the present disclosure provide an imaging system. For example, in the imaging system a first light source can generate a first light beam of a first wavelength, a second light source can generate a second light beam of a second wavelength, the second light beam having power sufficient to pass through at least a portion of a thickness of a wafer, an alignment module can coaxially align the second light beam with the first light beam, a coaxial module can focus the coaxially aligned first and second light beams onto a first pattern located on a front side of the wafer and a second pattern located below the first pattern, respectively, and an image capturing module can capture a first image of the first pattern and a second image of the second pattern. The second image can be captured via quantum tunneling imaging or infrared (IR) transmission imaging.

A lithography system is provided with: a measurement device measuring position information of marks on a substrate held in a first stage; and an exposure apparatus on a second stage, the substrate for which the position information measurement for the marks has been completed, performs alignment measurement to measure position information for part of marks selected from among the marks on the substrate, and performs exposure. The measurement device measures position information of marks on the substrate to obtain higher-degree components of correction amounts of an arrangement of divided areas, and the exposure apparatus measures position information of a small number of marks on the substrate to obtain lower-degree components of the correction amounts of the arrangement of the divided areas and exposes the plurality of divided areas while controlling the position of the substrate by using the obtained lower-degree components and the higher-degree components obtained by the measurement device.

A measurement device has: a slider which holds a substrate and is movable parallel to the XY plane; a drive system that drives the slider; a position measurement system which emits beams from a head section to a measurement surface in which grating section are provided on the slider, which receives respective return beams of the beams from the measurement surface, and which is capable of measuring position information in at least directions of three degrees of freedom including the absolute position coordinates of the slider; a mark detection system that detects a mark on the substrate; and a controller which detects the marks on the substrate using the mark detection system while controlling the drive of the slider, and which obtains the absolute position coordinates of each mark based on the detection result of each mark and measurement information by the position measurement system at the time of detection.

A lithography system is provided with: a measurement device measuring position information of marks on a substrate held in a first stage; and an exposure apparatus on a second stage, the substrate for which the position information measurement for the marks has been completed, performs alignment measurement to measure position information for part of marks selected from among the marks on the substrate, and performs exposure. The measurement device measures position information of marks on the substrate to obtain higher-degree components of correction amounts of an arrangement of divided areas, and the exposure apparatus measures position information of a small number of marks on the substrate to obtain lower-degree components of the correction amounts of the arrangement of the divided areas and exposes the plurality of divided areas while controlling the position of the substrate by using the obtained lower-degree components and the higher-degree components obtained by the measurement device.

Described herein are methods of determining an alignment model associated with a mark layout. A method includes obtaining (a) first measurement data a relatively dense mark layout (e.g., more than 200 marks) in comparison with a relatively sparse mark layout (e.g., less than 65 marks) and a second measurement data associated with the relatively sparse mark layout, and (b) a first fitted model that describes object deformation for the relatively dense overlay mark layout; and determining the alignment model based on a second fitted model that describes object deformation for the relatively sparse mark layout, via an fitting technique, based on generalized squares fitting employing an oblique inner product matrix (e.g., W) or an oblique projection least squares fitting employing an oblique projection matrix (e.g., P).

A method, involving determining a first distribution of a first parameter associated with an error or residual in performing a device manufacturing process; determining a second distribution of a second parameter associated with an error or residual in performing the device manufacturing process; and determining a distribution of a parameter of interest associated with the device manufacturing process using a function operating on the first and second distributions. The function may include a correlation.

A method of determining a mark measurement sequence for an object comprising a plurality of marks, the method including: receiving location data for the plurality of marks that are to be measured; obtaining a boundary model of a positioning device used for performing the mark measurement sequence; and determining the mark measurement sequence based on the location data and the boundary model.

An apparatus for and method of sensing alignment marks in which a self-referencing interferometer based sensor outputs standing images of the alignment marks and camera device is used to capture the images as output by the sensor and a detector is used to obtain phase information about the alignment marks from the images as output by the sensor.

A method of determining a set of metrology point locations, the set including a subset of potential metrology point locations on a substrate, the method including: determining a relation between noise distributions associated with a plurality of the potential metrology point locations using existing knowledge; and using the determined relation and a model associated with the substrate to determine the set.