Patent ID: 7103210

Claim:
An exposure apparatus comprising: a projection optical system for projecting a pattern onto a substrate; a chuck on which the substrate is placed; and a position detection section for detecting a position of a mark on the substrate placed on said chuck, wherein the substrate is aligned on the basis of a detection result by said position detection section, and then, the substrate is exposed using the pattern, said position detection section comprising: an extraction section for observing the mark and extracting a plurality of edge information of the mark in correspondence with attribute information representing features of the edge information, respectively; a position determination section for comparing each edge information with one of a plurality of templates, which is specified by attribute information corresponding to the edge information and evaluating a plurality of comparison results obtained by comparison to determine the position of the mark; and a control section for changing at least one of an extraction rule in said extraction section and an evaluation rule in said position determination section on the basis of the plurality of comparison results by said position determination section and causing said extraction section and said position determination section to execute processing again.