Patent ID: 8233142

Claim:
A monitoring method of an exposure apparatus, the monitoring method being adapted for determining whether there is a difference between a real exposure dose E and an input predetermined exposure dose E 0 and between a real exposure focus F and an input predetermined exposure focus F 0 , the monitoring method comprising: forming a photo-sensitive material layer on a wafer; exposing the wafer with the input predetermined exposure dose E 0 and the input predetermined exposure focus F 0 and transferring a mask pattern to the photo-sensitive material layer to form a test pattern; measuring a top critical dimension and a bottom critical dimension of the test pattern to obtain a real top critical dimension TCD and a real bottom critical dimension BCD; and calculating an exposure dose deviation ΔE and an exposure focus deviation ΔF with use of the following equations: TCD+BCD=αΔ E +(TCD 0 +BCD O ) TCD−BCD=β 1 ΔF+β 2 ΔF 3 , wherein α, β 1 , and β 2 are constants, ΔE=E−E 0 , ΔF=F−F 0 , E represents a real exposure dose, F represents a real exposure focus, E 0 represents a predetermined dose defined to make a middle critical dimension of the test pattern equalize a target value, F 0 represents a predetermined focus defined to make the top critical dimension of the test pattern equalize the bottom critical dimension thereof, and TCD 0 and BCD 0 are theoretical top critical dimension and bottom critical dimension of the test pattern on a condition of exposing the wafer with the input predetermined exposure dose E 0 and the input predetermined exposure focus F 0 , wherein TCD 0 is equal to BCD 0 .