| Patent Number |
Title Of Patent |
Date Issued |
| 7433051 |
Determination of lithography misalignment based on curvature and stress mapping data of substrat |
October 7, 2008 |
| Provided are methods to be carried out prior to, while, and/or after performing a photolithographic process to a wafer that involve wafer misalignment assessment. The method involves obtaining curvature and/or deformation information of a surface of the wafer over a plurality of loca |
| 7399945 |
Method of thermal processing a substrate with direct and redirected reflected radiation |
July 15, 2008 |
| Apparatus and methods for thermally processing a substrate with scanned laser radiation are disclosed. The apparatus includes a continuous radiation source and an optical system that forms an image on a substrate. The image is scanned relative to the substrate surface so that each po |
| 7369251 |
Full-field optical measurements of surface properties of panels, substrates and wafers |
May 6, 2008 |
| Techniques and systems for using optical interferometers to obtain full-field optical measurements of surfaces, such as surfaces of flat panels, patterned surfaces of wafers and substrates. Applications of various shearing interferometers for measuring surfaces are described. |
| 7326877 |
Laser thermal processing chuck with a thermal compensating heater module |
February 5, 2008 |
| Chuck methods and apparatus for supporting a semiconductor substrate and maintaining it at a substantially constant background temperature even when subject to a spatially and temporally varying thermal load. Chuck includes a thermal compensating heater module having a sealed chamber |
| 7292616 |
CO.sub.2 laser stabilization systems and methods |
November 6, 2007 |
| Systems and methods for stabilizing a CO.sub.2 laser are disclosed. The system includes a detector unit for measuring the power in a select portion of the output beam. The detector unit generates an electrical signal corresponding to the measured power. The modulation frequency of th |
| 7253376 |
Methods and apparatus for truncating an image formed with coherent radiation |
August 7, 2007 |
| Methods and apparatus for truncating an image formed with coherent radiation. The optical relay system is adapted to form a line image at the image plane. The image is truncated by a variable aperture at or near the aperture plane conjugate to the image plane, to block progressively |
| 7238915 |
Methods and apparatus for irradiating a substrate to avoid substrate edge damage |
July 3, 2007 |
| Methods and apparatus (100) for scanning a surface (12) of a substrate (10) with an obliquely incident radiation beam (20) over a select scan path (210) to avoid damage (30) to the curved edge (14) of the substrate. The methods and apparatus allow for the substrate edge to be irradiated |
| 7177099 |
Deep ultraviolet unit-magnification projection optical system and projection exposure apparatus |
February 13, 2007 |
| A 1.times. projection optical system for deep ultra-violet (DUV) photolithography is disclosed. The optical system is a modified Dyson system capable of imaging a relatively large field at high numerical apertures at DUV wavelengths. The optical system includes a lens group having fi |
| 7176405 |
Heat shield for thermal processing |
February 13, 2007 |
| A heat shield (10) that facilitates thermally processing a substrate (22) with a radiation beam (150) is disclosed. The heat shield is in the form of a cooled plate adapted to allow the radiation beam to communicate with the substrate upper surface (20) over a radiation beam path (BP), e |
| 7157660 |
Laser scanning apparatus and methods for thermal processing |
January 2, 2007 |
| Apparatus and methods for thermally processing a substrate with scanned laser radiation are disclosed. The apparatus includes a continuous radiation source and an optical system that forms an image on a substrate. The image is scanned relative to the substrate surface so that each po |
| 7154066 |
Laser scanning apparatus and methods for thermal processing |
December 26, 2006 |
| Apparatus and methods for thermally processing a substrate with scanned laser radiation are disclosed. The apparatus includes a continuous radiation source and an optical system that forms an image on a substrate. The image is scanned relative to the substrate surface so that each po |
| 7148953 |
Apochromatic unit-magnification projection optical system |
December 12, 2006 |
| A projection optical system suitable for projection photolithography is disclosed. The projection optical system is a modified Wynne-Dyson system capable of imaging a large field over both a narrow and a broad spectral range. The projection optical system includes a positive lens group |
| 7148159 |
Laser thermal annealing of lightly doped silicon substrates |
December 12, 2006 |
| Apparatus and method for performing laser thermal annealing (LTA) of a substrate using an annealing radiation beam that is not substantially absorbed in the substrate at room temperature. The method takes advantage of the fact that the absorption of long wavelength radiation (1 micron or |
| 7145104 |
Silicon layer for uniformizing temperature during photo-annealing |
December 5, 2006 |
| An apparatus and method for uniformizing the temperature distribution across a semiconductor wafer during radiation annealing of process regions formed in the wafer is disclosed. The method includes forming a silicon layer atop the upper surface of the wafer and irradiating the layer |
| 7116496 |
High NA large-field unit-magnification projection optical system |
October 3, 2006 |
| An optical system for projection photolithography is disclosed. The optical system is a modified Dyson system capable of imaging a large field over both a narrow and a broad spectral range. The optical system includes a positive lens group having a positive subgroup of elements that |
| 7098155 |
Laser thermal annealing of lightly doped silicon substrates |
August 29, 2006 |
| Apparatus and method for performing laser thermal annealing (LTA) of a substrate using an annealing radiation beam that is not substantially absorbed in the substrate at room temperature. The method takes advantage of the fact that the absorption of long wavelength radiation (1 micron or |
| 7095904 |
Method and apparatus for determining best focus using dark-field imaging |
August 22, 2006 |
| A method and apparatus (10) for determining a best focus position of an object (30) relative to a reference position (e.g., axis A) of a dark-field optical imaging system (20), with an effective focusing range up to 10 times of the depth of field of the system. The method includes th |
| 7049544 |
Beamsplitter for high-power radiation |
May 23, 2006 |
| A beamsplitter apparatus for use with high-power radiation is disclosed. The apparatus includes a thermally conductive frame with a central aperture. The frame holds a window in the central aperture at the window's periphery. The window includes a diamond substrate with an optional c |
| 6989515 |
Imaging stabilization apparatus and method for high-performance optical systems |
January 24, 2006 |
| An image stabilization apparatus and method for stabilizing the imaging of a high-performance optical system prone to imaging instabilities from thermal effects. Thermal instabilities within the lens, such as convection, can result in image placement errors in a high-performance opti |
| 6898306 |
Machine-independent alignment system and method |
May 24, 2005 |
| A method of measuring machine alignment offset of an optical machine having an alignment system, so that subsequent processing of substrates on set of optical machines can be performed in a machine-independent manner. The optical machine forms overlayed images of first and second pattern |
| 6879383 |
Large-field unit-magnification projection system |
April 12, 2005 |
| An optical system for projection photolithography is disclosed. The optical system is a modified Dyson system capable of imaging a large field over a broad spectral range. The optical system includes a positive lens group having three elements: a plano-convex element and two negative men |
| 6869155 |
Method and apparatus for masking a workpiece with ink |
March 22, 2005 |
| A method and apparatus for masking a workpiece with a layer of ink from an inkjet head is disclosed. The masking prevents exposure of select regions of a photosensitive workpiece. The apparatus includes a workpiece pre-aligner for movably supporting and aligning the workpiece. The inkjet |
| 6863403 |
Deep ultraviolet unit-magnification projection optical system and projection exposure apparatus |
March 8, 2005 |
| A 1X projection optical system for deep ultra-violet (DUV) photolithography is disclosed. The optical system is a modified Dyson system capable of imaging a relatively large field at high numerical apertures at DUV wavelengths. The optical system includes a lens group having first and |
| 6844250 |
Method and system for laser thermal processing of semiconductor devices |
January 18, 2005 |
| Methods and systems for performing laser thermal processing (LTP) of semiconductor devices are disclosed. The method includes forming a dielectric cap atop a temperature-sensitive element, and then forming an absorber layer atop the dielectric layer. A switch layer may optionally be |
| 6833908 |
Computer architecture for and method of high-resolution imaging using a low-resolution image tra |
December 21, 2004 |
| Architecture and method to transfer data in generation, display or printing high edge placement accuracy images from multiple exposure of plurality of predefined patterns with lower edge placement accuracy. A pattern is laid out on a grid finer or different from grid size of image transd |
| 6825101 |
Methods for annealing a substrate and article produced by such methods |
November 30, 2004 |
| A method of this invention includes annealing at least one region of a substrate with a short pulse of particles. The particles can be electrons, protons, alpha particles, other atomic or molecular ions or neutral atoms and molecules. The substrate can be composed of a semiconductor mate |
| 6813098 |
Variable numerical aperture large-field unit-magnification projection system |
November 2, 2004 |
| An optical system for projection photolithography is disclosed. The optical system is a modified Dyson system capable of imaging a large field over both a narrow and a broad spectral range. The optical system includes a positive lens group having a positive subgroup of elements that incl |
| 6809888 |
Apparatus and methods for thermal reduction of optical distortion |
October 26, 2004 |
| Apparatus and methods for reducing optical distortion in an optical system by thermal means are disclosed. The apparatus includes a heating/cooling system spaced apart from and in thermal communication with an internally reflecting surface of a refractive element in the optical system. T |
