The start of exposure or a process delays because reference alignment such as abutment must be executed along the optical axis after a substrate stage is moved between the exposure position and the processing position. To solve this problem, an exposure apparatus according to this invention includes an exposure optical system which exposes a substrate to a pattern, a substrate processing system which performs a predetermined process for the substrate at a position apart from the exposure optical system, a substrate stage which moves along a plane perpendicular to the optical axis of the exposure optical system, and a measurement device which continuously measures the position of the substrate stage along the optical axis in the moving range of the substrate stage while the substrate stage moves from below the substrate processing system to below the exposure optical system.

 
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