| US 7,477,772 B2 | ||
| Lithographic apparatus and device manufacturing method utilizing 2D run length encoding for image data compression | ||
| Andrej Makarovic, Veldhoven (Netherlands); Willem Jurrianus Venema, Eindhoven (Netherlands); Lambertus Gerardus Maria Kessels, Aalst-Waaire (Netherlands); and Marcel Bontekoe, Veldhoven (Netherlands) | ||
| Assigned to ASML Netherlands B.V., Veldhoven (Netherlands) | ||
| Filed on May 31, 2005, as Appl. No. 11/140,559. | ||
| Prior Publication US 2006/0269116 A1, Nov. 30, 2006 | ||
| Int. Cl. G06K 9/00 (2006.01); G06K 9/54 (2006.01) | ||
| U.S. Cl. 382—141 [382/303] | 32 Claims |
| 1. A lithographic apparatus, comprising:
an array of individually controllable elements that modulate a beam of radiation;
a data processing pipeline that converts a first representation of a requested dose pattern to a sequence of control data
suitable for controlling the array of individually controllable elements to substantially form the requested dose pattern
on a substrate, wherein the data processing pipeline comprises:
an offline pre-processing device that converts the first representation of the requested dose pattern to an intermediate representation
that is rasterized in a fewer number of operations than the first representation;
a storage device that stores the intermediate representation; and
an online rasterizer that accesses the stored intermediate representation and produces therefrom a stream of bitmap data to
be used to generate the sequence of control data substantially in real time.
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