A controller of an exposure apparatus is coupled to an alignment system, an aerial image measurement device and an encoder system, to control a drive system based on correction information and measurement information of the encoder system, the correction information compensating a measurement error of the encoder system that occurs due to a plurality of scale members. In an exposure operation of a substrate, a detection operation of a mark of the substrate and a fiducial mark, and a detection operation of an aerial image, the positional information of the stage is measured with the encoder system. In the exposure operation, the substrate is placed facing a lower surface of a nozzle member by a stage, and alignment between a pattern image and the substrate is performed based on detection information of the alignment system and the aerial image measurement device.

A method for measuring photomasks for semiconductor lithography, includes the following steps: loading a photomask into a recording unit of a measuring apparatus, recording images of individual measurement regions on the photomask by means of an image capturing unit, comparing at least one recorded image of a measurement region with a simulated image of this measurement region using specific simulation parameters. In the process, the comparison of at least one of the recorded images with the corresponding simulated image is used to carry out an adjustment of at least one portion of the simulation parameters.

Disclosed is an overlay measurement apparatus which may include: a light source unit configured to direct an illumination to an overlay measurement target formed in a wafer; a lens unit having an objective lens and a lens focus actuator; a detection unit acquiring a focus image at a measurement position; a stage on which the wafer is seated; and a control unit controlling the lens unit to acquire the overlay measurement target, processing a first sample image of the overlay measurement target detected by the detection unit and a second sample image rotated at 180 degrees based on the first sample image and detected, and calculating a difference between the processed images to calculate the difference as a correction image for correcting an image for which overlay is measured.

A controller of an exposure apparatus (1) controls a second drive system so that scanning exposure is performed via a projection optical system and liquid of a liquid immersion area, from an area located on one side in a first direction, of a plurality of areas of a substrate held by a second stage that is placed facing the projection optical system and (ii) controls the second drive system so that a third stage comes close to the second stage from the other side in the first direction, and the second and the third stages that have come close together move from the other side to the one side in the first direction in order to place the third stage to face the projection optical system instead of the second stage while substantially maintaining the liquid immersion area under the lens.

When a transition from a first state where one stage is positioned at a first area directly below projection optical system to which liquid is supplied to a state where the other stage-is positioned at the first area, both stages are simultaneously driven while a state where both stages are close together in the X-axis direction is maintained. Therefore, it becomes possible to make a transition from the first state to the second state in a state where liquid is supplied in the space between the projection optical system and the specific stage directly under the projection optical system. Accordingly, the time from the completion of exposure operation on one stage side until the exposure operation begins on the other stage side can be reduced, which allows processing with high throughput. Further, because the liquid can constantly exist on the image plane side of the projection optical system, generation of water marks on optical members of the projection optical system on the image plane side is prevented.

Position information of a movable body within an XY plane is measured with high accuracy by an encoder system whose measurement values have favorable short-term stability, without being affected by air fluctuations, and also position information of the movable body in a Z-axis direction orthogonal to the XY plane is measured with high accuracy by a surface position measuring system, without being affected by air fluctuations. In this case, since both of the encoder system and the surface position measuring system directly measure the upper surface of the movable body, simple and direct position control of the movable body can be performed.

A method of forming a radiation filter for a lithographic system, the method including forming at least one structure in or on a filter body, wherein the at least one structure provides a filtering effect and least one of a), b), c) or d): a) the at least one structure includes a plurality of transmissive, reflective, absorbing or fluorescent structures, and the method includes providing a desired distribution of the structures to provide a desired filtering effect; b) forming the at least one structure includes forming at least one transmissive, absorbing, reflective or fluorescent layer that has a variable thickness; c) forming the at least one structure includes altering at least one optical property to provide a variation of the optical property with position; d) the at least one structure includes a fluorescent layer that provides variation of at least one fluorescence property with position and/or angle of incidence.

An apparatus for detecting an attitude of electronic components. The electronic components include an electronic component having a plurality of terminals. The apparatus includes a storage and an image processor. The image processor is configured to: extract a binarized image from an image acquired by an imaging device; perform image matching between a terminal in the binarized image and a terminal in a model image to extract attitude candidates of image matching; obtain coordinates of a corner part of the plurality of terminals from the binarized image of the electronic component; select an attitude candidate from among the attitude candidates of image matching; and output the attitude candidate as a detected attitude of the electronic component.

A controller of an exposure apparatus is coupled to an alignment system, an aerial image measurement device and an encoder system, to control a drive system based on correction information and measurement information of the encoder system, the correction information compensating a measurement error of the encoder system that occurs due to a plurality of scale members. In an exposure operation of a substrate, a detection operation of a mark of the substrate and a fiducial mark, and a detection operation of an aerial image, the positional information of the stage is measured with the encoder system. In the exposure operation, the substrate is placed facing a lower surface of a nozzle member by a stage, and alignment between a pattern image and the substrate is performed based on detection information of the alignment system and the aerial image measurement device.

Position information of a movable body within an XY plane is measured with high accuracy by an encoder system whose measurement values have favorable short-term stability, without being affected by air fluctuations, and also position information of the movable body in a Z-axis direction orthogonal to the XY plane is measured with high accuracy by a surface position measuring system, without being affected by air fluctuations. In this case, since both of the encoder system and the surface position measuring system directly measure the upper surface of the movable body, simple and direct position control of the movable body can be performed.