PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16146433
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-09
Publication Date: 2019-02
Patent Classification: ["355", "053000"]

Abstract:
Position information of a movable body within an XY plane is measured with high accuracy by an encoder system whose measurement values have favorable short-term stability, without being affected by air fluctuations, and also position information of the movable body in a Z-axis direction orthogonal to the XY plane is measured with high accuracy by a surface position measuring system, without being affected by air fluctuations. In this case, since both of the encoder system and the surface position measuring system directly measure the upper surface of the movable body, simple and direct position control of the movable body can be performed.

Claim (Index 1):
An exposure apparatus that exposes a substrate with an illumination light via a liquid, the apparatus comprising:\n a projection optical system through which the illumination light passes, the projection optical system having a plurality of optical elements held in a barrel, and the plurality of optical elements including a lens disposed closest to an image plane side of the projection optical system, and a mirror; an adjustment device that moves a movable optical element of the plurality of optical elements; a nozzle member provided to surround the lens and having a lower surface to which the substrate is placed facing, the nozzle member locally forming a liquid immersion area with the liquid under the lens; a mask stage system having a first stage that is disposed above the projection optical system and holds a mask illuminated with the illumination light, and a first drive system that has a first motor to drive the first stage; a base member disposed below the nozzle member; a substrate stage system having a second stage and a third stage that are disposed on the base member and a second drive system that has a second motor to drive the second and the third stages, wherein\n the second stage has a holder to hold the substrate, and holds the substrate in a recessed portion, in which the holder is disposed, of an upper surface of the second stage, and \n the third stage has at least one measurement member that detects the illumination light via the projection optical system and the liquid of the liquid immersion area; \n a measurement system having a first measurement device and a second measurement device that measure positional information of the first stage and positional information of the second stage, respectively, wherein\n the second measurement device irradiates a grating section having a plurality of scale members disposed substantially parallel to a predetermined plane, with a plurality of measurement beams, and measures positional information of the second stage in directions of three degrees of freedom within the predetermined plane including a first direction and a second direction orthogonal to each other within the predetermined plane, and in a third direction orthogonal to the predetermined plane, the plurality of scale members each having a reflective grating that is periodic in a direction parallel to the predetermined plane, and the predetermined plane being orthogonal to an optical axis of the projection optical system; \n a detection device that is disposed on one side in the first direction with respect to the projection optical system, spaced apart from the projection optical system, and detects positional information of the substrate in the third direction; and a controller coupled to the adjustment device and the detection device, that controls the adjustment device to adjust an optical property of the projection optical system, and controls the first and the second drive systems based on measurement information of the first and the second measurement devices so that, in an exposure operation of the substrate, scanning exposure in which the mask and the substrate are each moved relative to the illumination light is performed with the first direction serving as a scanning direction, via the projection optical system and the liquid of the liquid immersion area, wherein the controller:\n controls the second drive system so that the third stage is placed to face the projection optical system and the substrate held by the second stage is detected by the detection device; \n controls the second drive system so that the second stage is moved from the one side in the first direction with respect to the third stage in order to cause the second stage to come close to the third stage placed facing the projection optical system, and so that the second and the third stages that have come close together are moved from the one side to the other side in the first direction in order to place the second stage to face the projection optical system instead of the third stage while substantially maintaining the liquid immersion area under the lens; and \n controls the second drive system so that focus-levelling control of a pattern image of the mask, that is projected via the projection optical system and the liquid of the liquid immersion area, and the substrate is performed based on detection information of the detection device, during the scanning exposure, and \n wherein, in the exposure operation, the substrate is placed to face the lower surface of the nozzle member by the second stage, and the measurement beam is irradiated on each of at least three scale members of the plurality of scale members, by the second measurement device.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 83.0
- Percentile: 97.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.91228
- Patent Class: 355.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: True
- Related Applications: ['15687003', '15675037', '15686718', '15678674', '15678660']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.7846418190209402
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5967772618768852
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7658553633065347
- Mean Citation Score: 404.475108
- Max Citation Score: 419.24802
- Similarity Product: 376.72631766177176

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