Cantilever-Free Scanning Probe Lithography (CF-SPL) techniques are used to enable generation of 1-, 2-, 3-, and 4-D information containing patterns in a mask-free manner that, in turn, enables instantaneous change of pattern design.

An exposure apparatus exposes a substrate using exposure light via a liquid. The exposure apparatus comprises a substrate holding part, which releasably holds and is capable of moving a substrate, a management apparatus, which manages a status of usage of a dummy substrate that the substrate holding part is capable of holding.

A structure and method for employing the structure to reliably read indicia formed on a substrate such as a panel or wafer is disclosed. A gripping member pulls the substrate into at least partial compliance with a locating structure to facilitate the proper function of a code reader. Where the indicia are not read, the substrate is moved relative to the code reader, starting from a position that may be determined based on the material properties of the substrate.

A substrate treatment system includes: a treatment station including a plurality of treatment apparatuses; an interface station which delivers a substrate to/from an exposure apparatus provided outside the system and including a plurality of exposure stages; a plurality of substrate inspection apparatuses; a substrate transfer mechanism which transfers the substrate between each of the treatment apparatuses in the treatment station and the substrate inspection apparatus; and a control apparatus which identifies an exposure stage which has been used in exposure processing of a substrate from among the plurality of exposure stages, and controls the substrate transfer mechanism to transfer the substrate after the exposure processing to a substrate inspection apparatus previously made to correspond to the identified exposure stage.

A pattern forming photo-curing layer is heated, thereby enabling quick shaping. A pattern manufacturing apparatus (100) includes a controller (101), a laser projector (102), and a heater (103). The controller (101) controls the laser projector (102) to form a pattern on a pattern forming sheet (130) placed on a stage (140). The laser projector (102) includes an optical engine (121), and the controller (101) controls the laser projector (102) to irradiate the pattern forming sheet (130) with a light beam from the optical engine (121). The heater (103) heats the pattern forming sheet (130).

A tag coordinate determination method includes: generating a tag unit for placing a detection tag; setting the detection tag and the tag unit in an image of a photomask, and obtaining a tag position file of the image, the tag position file including position coordinates of the tag unit in the image; and acquiring position coordinates of a tag to be processed in the image according to the tag position file. The tag coordinate determination method can overcome to a certain extent the problem of manually capturing the coordinates being prone to errors, thereby improving accuracy of coordinate determination.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure relates a lithographic substrate marking tool. The lithographic substrate marking tool has a first lithographic exposure tool arranged within a shared housing and configured to generate a first type of electromagnetic radiation during a plurality of exposures. A mobile reticle has a plurality of different reticle fields respectively configured to block a portion of the first type of electromagnetic radiation to expose a substrate identification mark within a photosensitive material overlying a semiconductor substrate. A transversal element is configured to move the mobile reticle so that separate ones of the plurality of reticle fields are exposed onto the photosensitive material during separate ones of the plurality of exposures. The mobile reticle therefore allows for different strings of substrate identification marks to be formed within the photoresistive material using a same reticle, thereby economically providing the benefits of lithographic substrate marking.

A method of generating chip-specific identification code marks on semiconductor chips includes patterning a resist layer over a semiconductor wafer by laser direct image exposure, the patterning including writing chip-specific identification codes into the resist layer over chip areas of the semiconductor wafer. The patterned resist layer is then developed.

The invention concerns a method of manufacturing an assembly of electronic components (3) on the front surface of a semiconductor wafer (1) comprising a plurality of field areas (4), each area (4) comprising at least one field (2) and each field (2) comprising at least one electronic component (3). The method comprises a plurality of photolithography steps to form a stack of layers forming each electronic component (3), each photolithography step comprises the application of a mask successively on each field (2) in photolithography equipment. One of the masks further comprises an identification pattern, said mask being called identification mask. At the photolithography step associated with the identification mask, as least one photolithographic parameter of the photolithography equipment is different for each field area (4), to expose the identification pattern differently in each field area (4).