Patent ID: 7177008

Claim:
A scanning exposure apparatus in which a sensitive substrate is exposed by projecting a pattern onto the sensitive substrate with an exposure beam while moving the sensitive substrate, the apparatus comprising: a projection system, disposed in a path of the exposure beam, which projects a pattern image onto the sensitive substrate; a stage system, disposed on an image plane side of the projection system and provided in a measurement region different from an exposure region in which the pattern image is projected via the projection system, which has a first stage and a second stage, each of which is movable independently in a plane while holding the sensitive substrate; a first detector, functionally associated with the stage system, which detects focusing information of a vicinity of an outer circumference of the sensitive substrate during a detecting operation prior to an exposure operation of the sensitive substrate in the exposure region; a control system, functionally associated with the stage system, which controls the stage system to perform the detecting operation with the first stage, while performing a first exposure operation with the second stage, the sensitive substrate held by the second stage being exposed in the first exposure operation; and wherein after finishing the first exposure operation, a second exposure operation for the sensitive substrate on the first stage is performed, in which a shot area in the vicinity of the outer circumference of the sensitive substrate held by the first stage is exposed by moving the first stage in a scanning direction so that the exposure beam scans the sensitive substrate from the outside to the inside of the sensitive substrate while adjusting a surface position of the sensitive substrate held by the first stage on the basis of the detected focusing information.