Patent ID: 7342645

Claim:
A stage control apparatus for controlling a first stage on which a substrate can be placed and moved, the apparatus comprising: a target value generating unit configured to generate a target value relating to a vertical direction of the first stage based upon substrate surface position information that corresponds to unevenness of the surface of the substrate; a signal generating unit configured to generate a drive command signal of the first stage based upon a deviation signal between the target value generated by said target value generating unit and a measured position of the first stage; a first acquisition unit configured to acquire and to hold in memory the substrate surface position information by measuring the surface position of the substrate on a second stage separate from the first stage, wherein the substrate can be placed on and moved by the second stage; and a second acquisition unit configured to eliminate frequency components, which include a mechanical resonance frequency of the second stage, from spatial frequency of the unevenness represented by the substrate surface position information, to decide a target frequency based upon the spatial frequency after elimination of the frequency components and to hold in the memory the target frequency, wherein said target value generating unit acquires the substrate surface position information from the memory, and wherein said signal generating unit acquires from the memory the target frequency which has been decided by said second acquisition unit, and generates the drive command signal using a signal obtained by amplifying a component of the target frequency of the deviation signal.