Patent ID: 7941232

Claim:
A control method of controlling a quality criteria of a predetermined apparatus that is installed in a clean room to manufacture micro-devices, the method comprising: obtaining data related to a predetermined quality criteria, which includes at least one of an image-forming quality criteria of an optical system and a position control quality criteria of a stage which moves while an object is mounted thereon, and which has environmental conditions serving as variation factors, and data on the environmental conditions, by repeatedly executing a predetermined measurement at least one of at a set timing and at set intervals, wherein the predetermined apparatus comprises the optical system and the stage, and the environmental conditions include at least one of temperature, humidity and pressure in a controlled environment where the micro-devices are manufactured; deriving a model equation used to predict a variation amount of the predetermined quality criteria that includes at least one of the environmental conditions as a variable, by performing multivariate analysis based on the obtained data; obtaining data on the environmental condition that is the variable at a predetermined timing during operation of the predetermined apparatus, and computing a variation amount of the quality criteria based on the obtained data and the model equation; adjusting an implementation timing of the predetermined measurement so that an implementation interval of the predetermined measurement lengthens in the case the variation amount of the quality criteria computed using the model equation does not exceed a value set in advance predetermined times in a row, and an implementation interval of the predetermined measurement shortens in the case the variation amount of the quality criteria computed using the model equation exceeds a permissible value set in advance; and controlling the quality criteria of the predetermined apparatus based on the model equation.