A precision optical exposure process of lithography has become one of the essential processes to manufacture and develop micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) devices, flat panel display (FPD), and semiconductor. For a typical exposure process for the lithography, a photomask that is often very expensive is required to generate patterns[1]. So it is very inefficient not only in terms of cost but also the time due to the reliance on the photomasks in development. The alternative solution is the maskless lithography system, which does not use photomasks since the patterns are generated by using a digital mirror device (DMD). The unit mirror of a digital mirror device has two kinds of status which are on and off, then the status of unit mirrors configures a pattern called point array method. The maskless lithography system can reduce the amount of work forces significantly and save money as well. However, the maskless lithography system has a critical drawback, which is a low throughput since the patterns are generated in a line. This is an intrinsic problem of point array method. So in most volume production processes of maskless lithography system, a number of optical heads are used in order to maximize throughput of the expositing process. And to guarantee the exposure quality, multiple numbers of optical heads should be accurately aligned to each other, and then the focal plane of each optical head is also well aligned with chuck.
Optofluidic maskless lithography system for real-time synthesis of photopolymerized microstructures in microfluidic channels
