US 11,927,883 B2
Method and apparatus to reduce variation of physical attribute of droplets using performance characteristic of dispensers
Steven Wayne Burns, Austin, TX (US); Logan L. Simpson, Coupland, TX (US); Matthew C. Traub, Austin, TX (US); Adam Shackleton, Austin, TX (US); Whitney Longsine, Austin, TX (US); and Brent Andrew Snyder, Austin, TX (US)
Assigned to CANON KABUSHIKI KAISHA, Tokyo (JP)
Filed by CANON KABUSHIKI KAISHA, Tokyo (JP)
Filed on Mar. 30, 2018, as Appl. No. 15/942,121.
Prior Publication US 2019/0302610 A1, Oct. 3, 2019
Int. Cl. G03F 7/00 (2006.01); B29C 43/58 (2006.01); B41J 2/045 (2006.01)
CPC G03F 7/0002 (2013.01) [B29C 43/58 (2013.01); B41J 2/04508 (2013.01); B41J 2/04541 (2013.01); B29C 2043/5825 (2013.01); B29C 2043/5833 (2013.01); B29C 2043/5891 (2013.01)] 8 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An apparatus comprising:
a performance monitor configured to determine a performance characteristic of a plurality of dispensers receiving fluid from a reservoir, wherein each of the plurality of dispensers has an actuator that, when actuated, causes the each of the dispensers to generate a droplet of the fluid on a semiconductor substrate in a nanoimprint lithography system; and
a driver configured to generate a drive command to the actuator to adjust a physical attribute of the droplet based on the performance characteristic to satisfy a performance criteria related to uniformity of a residual layer thickness,
wherein the drive command is based on feedback information related to variation of the physical attribute,
wherein the variation includes a variance of values representing the physical attribute,
wherein the driver comprises:
an adjustment storage configured to store an adjustment schedule for adjusting the drive command by translating the performance characteristic into values corresponding to the drive command; and
a command generator configured to generate the drive command based on the performance characteristic and the adjustment schedule,
wherein the performance monitor comprises:
a memory configured to store a usage of the plurality of dispensers; and
a rate calculator configured to calculate the utilization rate of a subset of the plurality of dispensers based on the usage, and
wherein the driver generates the drive command corresponding to the utilization rate calculated by the rate calculator based on a correspondence between the utilization rate and the values corresponding to the drive command.