Exposure apparatus, exposure method, and device manufacturing method

摘要

While an exposure processing is performed to a wafer held by a fine movement stage supported by a coarse movement stage in an exposure station, at least a part of a measurement processing to a wafer held by another fine movement stage supported by another coarse movement stage and an exchange of a wafer held by yet another fine movement stage on a center table is concurrently performed. Because of this, exposure with a higher throughput becomes possible, even when compared with a conventional exposure apparatus which concurrently performs an exposure processing to a wafer on a wafer stage, and processing such as wafer exchange and alignment on another stage.

主权项

1. An exposure apparatus that exposes an object with an energy beam, the apparatus comprising:
an exposure station where an exposure processing to irradiate an energy beam on an object is performed; a measurement station which is placed at a position a predetermined distance away from the exposure station on one side of a direction parallel to a first axis, and where a measurement processing with respect to the object is performed; a first movable body which is movable within a first range including the exposure station within a two-dimensional plane including the first axis and a second axis orthogonal to the first axis; a second movable body which is movable within a second range including the measurement station within the two-dimensional plane; at least three holding members, each holding member being configured to hold the object, each holding member being supported by the first movable body or the second movable body so that each holding member is relatively movable against the first movable body and the second movable body within a plane parallel to the two-dimensional plane, a measurement plane being provided on each of the holding members; a support device which can support the holding members; a first measurement system which irradiates at least one first measurement beam from below on the measurement plane of the holding member, receives a return light of the first measurement beam and measures positional information of the holding member within the two-dimensional plane, when the first movable body supporting the holding member is at the exposure station; and a second measurement system which irradiates at least one second measurement beam from below on the measurement plane of the holding member, receives a return light of the second measurement beam and measures positional information of the holding member within the two-dimensional plane, when the second movable body supporting the holding member is at the measurement station, whereby while the exposure processing with respect to an object held by the holding member supported by the first movable body in the exposure station is performed, at least a part of the measurement processing with respect to an object held by the holding member supported by the second movable body in the measurement station and at least a part of a carriage of the holding member supported on the support device for an exchange of an object held by the holding member are concurrently performed.