4. Supporting larger glass plates with the multi-lens system

As glass plates become larger each year, allowing a larger number of panels to be cut from them, it becomes necessary to increase productivity so that circuits over a wider area can be patterned with a single exposure.

Nikon developed the multi-lens system based on its unique technologies as the solution to this problem. For efficient exposure, Nikon arranges multiple lenses in two rows that cover a large exposure area. The FX-103SH/103S, the largest Nikon FPD lithography system, has 14 lenses arranged in rows that are precisely controlled to function as one giant lens.
The effects of heat and other factors during the production process cause distortion of the glass plate. Nikon's multi-lens system is equipped with a mechanism that accurately detects this distortion and corrects it by precisely controlling the position and focal point of the transferred image of each lens. The system follows even the slightest distortion of the plate surface to enable high-precision exposure.