Lithographic apparatus and controllable patterning device utilizing a spatial light modulator with distributed digital to analog conversion

摘要

The present invention comprises a lithographic apparatus and a device manufacturing method that uses a patterning device that increases a number of individually controllable elements. These elements are programmed simultaneously to increase an update rate of an array of individually controllable elements. The number of required high speed analog inputs to the array is reduced. The complexity of the array is reduced and the maximum update speed of the array is increased. Furthermore, the number of elements within an array can be readily expanded. The patterning device can be divided into a plurality of groups of cells (30) and the lithographic apparatus can comprise a plurality of supply channels (32,33,34). Each supply channel can be arranged to provide a voltage signal to each cell (30) in a respective group of cells. This can reduce the number of required inputs to the patterning device for individually addressing each cell.