Mask aligner is a machine that uses light to carve, which is used to achieve the purpose of light eroding photoresist. Therefore, mask aligner is to reduce a large circuit diagram to the size of a chip through a lens, and then use light to erode the photoresist to achieve the purpose of automatically forming a circuit.

Mask aligner is a very complicated machine. At present, the most powerful manufacturer in mask aligner is ASML in the Netherlands, and they have been able to produce mask aligner with 5nm lines.

Classification of mask aligner

Mask aligner is generally divided into three types according to the simplicity of operation: manual, semi-automatic and full-automatic.

Manual: refers to the adjustment mode of alignment, which is to complete alignment by manually adjusting the knob to change its X axis, Y axis and thita angle, and the alignment accuracy is not high.

Semi-automatic: it means that the alignment can be positioned and tuned according to CCD through the electric shaft.

Automatic: refers to the uploading and downloading from the substrate. The exposure duration and cycle are controlled by the program. The automatic mask aligner mainly meets the needs of the factory for processing capacity.