Patent ID: 7025280

Claim:
A method of operating a thermal processing system comprising: positioning a reticle/mask on a heating apparatus comprising a plurality of segments; creating a dynamic thermal model of the system; establishing a plurality of intelligent setpoints using the dynamic thermal model of the system, wherein at least one intelligent setpoint is created for each segment of the heating apparatus; controlling an actual temperature of each segment using the at least one intelligent setpoint and thereby establishing a controlled temperature profile across the reticle/mask; receiving feed forward data that includes information of properties or parameters of a reticle/mask to be positioned on the heating apparatus; estimating reticle/mask stresses using the feed forward data; creating a thermal model for a gap between the reticle/mask and the heating apparatus, wherein the thermal response for the gap is predicted based on the estimated reticle/mask stresses; and incorporating the thermal model for the gap into the dynamic thermal model of the system.