Patent ID: 7889314

Claim:
A calibration method to calibrate a substrate table position in a lithographic apparatus, the method comprising: repeatedly irradiating a pattern onto a surface of the substrate so as to create a two dimensional arrangement of patterns on the surface of the substrate, said repeatedly irradiating including displacing the substrate table between successive irradiations to irradiate the pattern onto different locations on the surface of the substrate; reading out the patterns to obtain pattern read out results; deriving incremental position deviations between two neighboring patterns in each of the two dimensions of the two dimensional arrangement of patterns from the read out results of neighboring patterns, said incremental position deviations in each of the two dimensions being a function of the position of the substrate table in the two dimensions of the two dimensional arrangement; determining a two dimensional position error of the substrate table as a function of the two dimensional position of the substrate table based on the derived incremental position deviations; and calibrating the position of the substrate table using the position dependent position error, said calibrating includes providing the determined two dimensional position error to a controller that is configured to control the position of the substrate table, wherein the pattern comprises a plurality of marks extending along a first dimension of the two dimensions comprise marks to detect displacements in the first dimension and displacements in a third dimension substantially perpendicular to the first and second dimensions.