Described herein are apparatus and methods used to process a substrate in a chamber, in particular to position a non-round substrate in a holding chamber or a processing chamber. Further described herein are methods and apparatus that detect radiation transmitted along the thickness of the substrate between the top surface and the bottom surface, determine a signal strength as the substrate is rotated and obtaining a signal strength pattern to determine a position of the substrate within the chamber with respect to a center position.

A lithographic apparatus has a substrate table on which a substrate is positioned, and an alignment sensor used to measure the alignment of the substrate. In an exemplary processing method, the alignment sensor is used to perform one or more edge measurements in a first step. In a second step, one or more edge measurements are performed on the notch of the substrate. The edge measurements are then used to align the substrate in the lithographic apparatus. In a particular example, the substrate is arranged relative to the alignment sensor such that a portion of the edge surface is positioned at the focal length of the lens. When the alignment sensor detects radiation scattered by the edge surface at the focal length of the lens, the presence of the edge of the substrate is detected.

A wafer alignment apparatus includes a light source, a light detection device, and a rotation device configured to rotate a wafer. The light source is configured to provide a light directed to the wafer. The light detection device is configured to detect reflected light intensity from the wafer to locate at least one wafer alignment mark of wafer alignment marks separated by a plurality of angles. At least two of those angles are equal.

A pre-alignment system includes a common object lens group configured to collect diffracted beams from a patterning device, wherein the common object lens group is further configured to produce telecentricity in an object space of the pre-alignment system. The pre-alignment system also includes a multipath sensory array having at least one image lens system, wherein the at least one image lens system includes a telecentric converter lens configured to produce telecentricity in an image space of the pre-alignment system.

A method includes providing a workpiece to a semiconductor apparatus, the workpiece including a material layer including a first strip having: a first plurality of exposure fields; and a second plurality of exposure fields alternatingly arranged with the first plurality of exposure fields. The method further includes: scanning the first strip along a first scan route from a first side of the workpiece to a second side of the workpiece to generate first topography measurement data; scanning the first strip along a second scan route from the second side to the first side to generate second topography measurement data; and exposing the first plurality of exposure fields and exposing the second plurality of exposure fields according to the first topography measurement data and the second topography measurement data.

A pre-alignment system includes a common object lens group configured to collect diffracted beams from a patterning device, wherein the common object lens group is further configured to produce telecentricity in an object space of the pre-alignment system. The pre-alignment system also includes a multipath sensory array having at least one image lens system, wherein the at least one image lens system includes a telecentric converter lens configured to produce telecentricity in an image space of the pre-alignment system.

The present invention provides a measurement method of measuring a rotational shift amount of pattern regions arranged on a substrate with respect to a reference portion provided at an outer edge of the substrate, including obtaining a first image by capturing a target region including a target object on the substrate during detecting a position of the reference portion while rotating the substrate, obtaining a second image by capturing the target object in a state in which the substrate remains still, obtaining a third image indicating a difference between the first image and the second image by correcting the second image with the first image, and obtaining a position of the target object based on the third image and obtaining the rotational shift amount of the pattern regions with respect to the reference portion based on the obtained position of the target object.

A method for pre-aligning a substrate includes the steps of: 1) providing a substrate having a plurality of marks are arranged circumferentially on a surface thereof, wherein each of the plurality of marks consists of at least one first stripe extending in a first direction and at least one second stripe extending in a first direction; 2) aligning a center of the substrate with a given point on a substrate carrier stage; 3) illuminating a mark selected from the plurality of marks on the surface of the substrate with light and obtaining an image of the selected mark; 4) processing the image to obtain first projection data corresponding to the first direction and second projection data corresponding to the second direction; 5) identifying a set of first peak values corresponding to the at least one first stripe of the selected mark from the first projection data and a set of second peak values corresponding to the at least one second stripe of the selected mark from the second projection data; 6) selecting first peak values and second peak values that a) correspond to numbers of the at least one first stripe and the at least one second stripe and b) are deemed authentic, from the set of first peak values and the set of second peak values identified in step 5) and proceeding to step 7); otherwise selecting a next mark as the selected mark and returning to step 4); 7) calculating a current position of the selected mark relative to the substrate carrier stage based on the first and second peak values selected in step 6); and 8) rotating the substrate, according to the current position of the selected mark relative to the substrate carrier stage calculated in step 7), a relative position of the selected mark on the substrate and a desired rotation angle of the substrate relative to the substrate carrier stage, until the substrate is oriented at the desired rotation angle.

A device for determining alignment errors of structures which are present on, or which have been applied to a substrate, comprising a substrate holder for accommodating the substrate with the structures and detection means for detecting X-Y positions of first markings on the substrate and/or second markings on the structures by moving the substrate or the detection means in a first coordinate system, wherein in a second coordinate system which is independent of the first coordinate system X-Y structure positions for the structures are given whose respective distance from the X-Y positions of the first markings and/or second markings can be determined by the device.

In a method of controlling a lithographic apparatus, historical performance measurements are used to calculate a process model relating to a lithographic process. Current positions of a plurality of alignment marks provided on a current substrate are measured and used to calculate a substrate model relating to a current substrate. Additionally, historical position measurements obtained at the time of processing the prior substrates are used with the historical performance measurements to calculate a model mapping. The model mapping is applied to modify the substrate model. The lithographic apparatus is controlled using the process model and the modified substrate model together. Overlay performance is improved by avoiding over- or under-correction of correlated components of the process model and the substrate model. The model mapping may be a subspace mapping, and dimensionality of the model mapping may be reduced, before it is used.