Reticle stage with station switching function

Abstract

The invention discloses a reticle stage with a station switching function. The reticle stage comprises a plate bearing platform, an air floating plate, a station switching mechanism, an air floating structure, a horizontal fine tuning mechanism and a vertical adjusting mechanism, wherein the plate bearing platform is fixed above the air floating plate through the air floating structure and is used for bearing mask plates with one or more patterns; the station switching mechanism is used for driving the plate bearing platform to move to switch the patterns on the mask plates to different stations; the horizontal fine tuning mechanism is used for driving the air floating plate to move in a horizontal direction to realize fine tuning of the mask plates in the horizontal direction; and the vertical adjusting mechanism is used for adjusting the vertical height of the mask plates. According to the reticle stage disclosed by the invention, vacuum and positive-pressure switching of the air floating structure of the plate bearing platform and vertical decoupling effect of a flexible decoupling mechanism between the plate bearing platform and a guide rail solve the precise coupling problem of the station switching mechanism in the vertical direction; and the assembling difficulty of the station switching mechanism is reduced and the height position precision of a mask pattern region before and after switching is improved.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention relates to the field of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, in particular to a mask table with a station switching function used in a semiconductor stepper photolithography machine. Background technique [0002] The photolithography apparatus in the prior art is mainly used in the manufacture of integrated circuits (ICs) or other micro devices. Through a photolithographic apparatus, multi-layer masks with different mask patterns are sequentially imaged under precise alignment on a photoresist-coated silicon wafer / substrate, such as a semiconductor wafer or an LCD panel. Lithography devices are generally divided into two categories, one is a stepping lithography device, the mask pattern is exposed and imaged in one exposure cavity of the wafer, and then the silicon wafer / substrate moves relative to the mask to move the next exposure cavity to Under the mask pattern and the projection objective lens, the mask pattern is exposed to anoth...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Patent CN 101303532 proposes a six-degree-of-freedom positioning table with a station switching mechanism, but due to the existence of assembly stress and the structural deformation of the plate holder caused by the driving force of the driving device, it is difficult to install and adjust the switching mechanism

Moreover, before and after switching, the vertical position of the reticle pattern has a large deviation, which affects the exposure focal depth and exposure quality

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