Patent ID: 7027155

Claim:
A method for precisely relatively positioning a waist of a pulsed laser material processing beam to compensate for microscopic positional variations of predetermined target material to be laser processed, the target material being supported on a semiconductor substrate, the method comprising: obtaining three-dimensional information at a plurality of predetermined locations about the target material, the locations being a combination of at least one predetermined location at which an alignment target is formed and at least one other predetermined location at which an alignment target is not formed and which is suitable for an optical measurement; predicting the location of the target material relative to a laser beam waist position based on the three-dimensional information including three-dimensional information obtained at the at least one other predetermined location to obtain a three-dimensional location prediction; inducing motion of the target material relative to a laser beam waist position based on the prediction; generating a laser beam including at least one pulse; and irradiating the at least one pulse into a spot on the target material to process the target material.