PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16111556
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-08
Publication Date: 2018-12
Patent Classification: ["355", "072000"]

Abstract:
A controller of an exposure apparatus is coupled to an alignment system, an aerial image measurement device and an encoder system, to control a drive system based on correction information and measurement information of the encoder system, the correction information compensating a measurement error of the encoder system that occurs due to a plurality of scale members. In an exposure operation of a substrate, a detection operation of a mark of the substrate and a fiducial mark, and a detection operation of an aerial image, the positional information of the stage is measured with the encoder system. In the exposure operation, the substrate is placed facing a lower surface of a nozzle member by a stage, and alignment between a pattern image and the substrate is performed based on detection information of the alignment system and the aerial image measurement device.

Claim (Index 15):
An exposure method of exposing a substrate with an illumination light via a projection optical system and a liquid, the method comprising:\n locally forming a liquid immersion area with the liquid under a lens, by a nozzle member provided to surround the lens and having a lower surface to which the substrate is placed facing, the lens being disposed closest to an image plane side, of a plurality of optical elements of the projection optical system; holding a mask illuminated with the illumination light, with a first stage disposed above the projection optical system, positional information of the first stage being measured by a first measurement system; holding the substrate with a second stage, of the second stage and a third stage that are disposed on a base member below the projection optical system, the second stage having a holder that holds the substrate, and the third stage having at least one measurement member that detects the illumination light via the projection optical system and the liquid of the liquid immersion area; measuring positional information of the second and the third stages, with a second measurement system different from the first measurement system, the second measurement system having an encoder system, the encoder system having a plurality of heads that respectively irradiate a plurality of scale members disposed substantially parallel to the predetermined plane, with a measurement beam, and measuring the positional information of the second stage with at least three heads, of the plurality of heads, that face at least three of the plurality of scale members, and each of the plurality of scale members having a reflective grating periodic in a direction parallel to the predetermined plane; moving the second stage under a first detection system so that the mark of the substrate is detected by the first detection system, the first detection system being disposed spaced apart from the projection optical system, on one side in a first direction within a predetermined plane orthogonal to an optical axis of the projection optical system; moving the second stage from the one side to the other side in the first direction so that the second stage comes close to the third stage that is placed facing the projection optical system; moving the second and the third stages that have come close together from the one side to the other side in the first direction with respect to the projection optical system so that the second stage is placed to face the projection optical system instead of the third stage while substantially maintaining the liquid immersion area under the lens, the substrate being placed to face the lower surface of the nozzle member by the second stage that is placed to face the projection optical system instead of the third stage; and moving the first and the second stages based on detection information of the first detection system and measurement information of the first and the second measurement systems so that, in an exposure operation of the substrate that is placed to face the lower surface of the nozzle member, alignment between the mask and the substrate and scanning exposure in which the mask and the substrate are each moved relative to the illumination light in the first direction are performed, wherein the second stage is moved from the one side to the other side in the first direction with respect to the projection optical system so that, in the exposure operation, the scanning exposure is performed via the projection optical system and the liquid of the liquid immersion area, from an area located on the one side in the first direction, of a plurality of areas on the substrate.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 74.0
- Percentile: 96.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.76364
- Patent Class: 355.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: True
- Related Applications: ['15675037', '15686718', '15687003', '15946030', '15600174']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.7621722546573216
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5420333052139803
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7401583597129875
- Mean Citation Score: 414.925556
- Max Citation Score: 429.56183
- Similarity Product: 391.9041037448776

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 0
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test