Patent ID: 8293456

Claim:
A semiconductor device manufacturing method comprising: applying illumination light from an illumination light source to a photomask containing a mask pattern composed of a transparent region and a nontransparent region, and projecting diffracted light components from the photomask on a substrate via a projection optical system to form a photoresist pattern on the substrate, wherein the mask pattern includes a plurality of opening patterns which are the transparent regions, the centers of the opening patterns being arranged at regular second intervals on each of a plurality of parallel lines, the plurality of parallel lines having regular first intervals in a first direction and extending in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction, the centers of the plurality of opening patterns arranged on the adjacent ones of the plurality of parallel lines are displaced from each other half the second interval; setting the illumination shape of the illumination light source so that three of the diffracted light components from the photomask pass through the pupil of the projection optical system; varying the dimensions of the plurality of opening patterns and the complex amplitude transmittance of the nontransparent region in the photomask; and setting the dimensions of the plurality of opening patterns and the complex amplitude transmittance of the nontransparent region in the photomask so that the three diffracted light components have equal amplitudes.