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.