PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16090015
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-09
Publication Date: 2019-04
Patent Classification: ["355", "071000"]

Abstract:
A coaxial reticle alignment device, a lithography apparatus and alignment methods are disclosed. The coaxial reticle alignment device includes: illumination modules (A, B), each configured to provide an alignment light beam; a projection objective ( 8 ) under a reticle ( 5 ); a reference plate ( 9 ) on a workpiece stage ( 12 ), configured to carry a reference mark ( 10 ); and an image detection and processing module ( 11 ) under the reference plate ( 9 ). The reference mark ( 10 ) is located within a FOV of the image detection and processing module ( 11 ), and during movement of the workpiece stage ( 12 ), the image detection and processing module ( 11 ) receives the alignment light beam having passed sequentially through the reticle alignment mark ( 6, 7 ), the projection objective ( 8 ) and the reference mark ( 10 ), it captures images of the reticle alignment mark ( 6, 7 ) and the reference mark ( 10 ) which are processed to derive relative positional information between the reticle alignment mark ( 6, 7 ) and the reference mark ( 10 ) that enables the alignment of the reticle ( 5 ) with the workpiece stage ( 12 ). The coaxial reticle alignment device adopts dedicated separate illumination means, has a simple structure, allows easy operation and improves alignment efficiency.

Claim (Index 12):
A reticle alignment method, comprising the steps of:\n 1) irradiating a first alignment light beam emanated from a first illumination module onto a first reticle alignment mark on a reticle and moving a workpiece stage so that the first alignment light beam passes through a projection objective and is incident on a reference mark on the workpiece stage; 2) receiving, by an image detection and processing module disposed under the reference mark, the first alignment light beam that has passed sequentially through the first reticle alignment mark, the projection objective and the reference mark and hence capturing images of the first reticle alignment mark and the reference mark, which are then processed to derive first relative positional information between the first reticle alignment mark and the reference mark; 3) irradiating a second alignment light beam emanated from a second illumination module onto a second reticle alignment mark on the reticle and moving the workpiece stage so that the second alignment light beam passes through the projection objective and is incident on the reference mark, wherein during movement of the workpiece stage for the image detection and processing module, the reference mark is located within a field of view of the image detection and processing module; and 4) receiving, by the image detection and processing module, the second alignment light beam that has passed sequentially through the second reticle alignment mark, the projection objective and the reference mark and hence capturing images of the second reticle alignment mark and the reference mark, which are then processed to derive second relative positional information between the second reticle alignment mark and the reference mark, and aligning the reticle with the workpiece stage based both on the first relative positional information between the first reticle alignment mark and the reference mark and on the second relative positional information between the second reticle alignment mark and the reference mark, wherein the reference mark and the image detection and processing module are shared by the reticle alignment marks.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 8.0
- Percentile: 97.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.84444
- Patent Class: 355.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: True
- Related Applications: ['11132260', '16089956', '10279924', '14002917', '10998596']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.6777917772863279
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4860828866095106
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.6586208882186462
- Mean Citation Score: 253.42859
- Max Citation Score: 261.96512
- Similarity Product: 215.94804225524905

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test