Patent ID: 8451426

Claim:
An exposure method for continuously exposing an exposure area along a fixed direction, comprising: transferring a substrate toward said fixed direction with a fixed velocity by a substrate transfer portion, the substrate being preformed with a plurality of rectangular pixels arranged in a matrix, each of the rectangular pixels having a side edge parallel to the fixed direction and a front edge parallel to a perpendicular direction perpendicular to the fixed direction; detecting reference positions of the substrate for said fixed direction and said perpendicular direction through an image of the side edge and the front edge, respectively, of each of the rectangular pixels, which is regarded as a reference pattern, wherein said image is taken by an image sensor portion at an image pick-up position; adjusting a position of a mask with said reference positions of said substrate when said substrate transfer portion moves said reference pattern from said image pick-up position to an exposure position; and transferring an image of an aperture of said mask to form a band-shaped exposure area surrounding the rectangular pixels aligned along the fixed direction on said substrate by exposure light that comes from a continuous light source and irradiates said exposure position passing through said mask provided at an optical axis of an exposure optical system.