Method and apparatus for substrate imaging
First Claim
1. An apparatus for substrate imaging, comprising:
- at least one transmitter;
at least one receiver;
a controller coupled to the receiver and the transmitter wherein the controller comprises a processor and at least one substrate imaging program that when executed on the processor performs a method of;
(a) determining the trigger intervals for at least two trigger signals for the acquisition of at least two images on a substrate surface moving with non-linear motion wherein a first trigger interval corresponds to a first image position and a second trigger interval corresponds to a second image position;
(b) transmitting one or more optical signals from the transmitter to the first and second image positions on the substrate surface;
(c) receiving the at least two trigger signals at the receiver wherein the two trigger signals comprise a first trigger signal corresponding to the first trigger interval, and a second trigger signal corresponding to the second trigger interval; and
(d) receiving a portion of the one or more optical signals at the receiver from the first image position and the second image position.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The invention provides a substrate surface imaging method and apparatus that compensates for non-linear movement of the substrate surface during an imaging sequence. In one aspect of the invention, the imaging method and apparatus compensate for the non-linear substrate surface movement by adjusting the image receiver trigger points to correspond to image positions on the substrate surface. In another aspect, the invention provides synchronous imaging where the distance between each image position is determined by counting the number of stepper motor steps between image positions. In still another aspect, the invention provides for asynchronous substrate imaging by determining an image trigger time between each image position and using the image trigger time to trigger the receiver at the appropriate time to accurately image the substrate surface.
43 Citations
30 Claims
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1. An apparatus for substrate imaging, comprising:
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at least one transmitter;
at least one receiver;
a controller coupled to the receiver and the transmitter wherein the controller comprises a processor and at least one substrate imaging program that when executed on the processor performs a method of;
(a) determining the trigger intervals for at least two trigger signals for the acquisition of at least two images on a substrate surface moving with non-linear motion wherein a first trigger interval corresponds to a first image position and a second trigger interval corresponds to a second image position;
(b) transmitting one or more optical signals from the transmitter to the first and second image positions on the substrate surface;
(c) receiving the at least two trigger signals at the receiver wherein the two trigger signals comprise a first trigger signal corresponding to the first trigger interval, and a second trigger signal corresponding to the second trigger interval; and
(d) receiving a portion of the one or more optical signals at the receiver from the first image position and the second image position. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A method of substrate imaging, comprising:
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(a) determining the trigger intervals for at least two trigger signals for the acquisition of at least two images on a substrate surface moving with non-linear motion wherein a first trigger interval corresponds to a first image position and a second trigger interval corresponds to a second image position;
(b) transmitting optical signals from a transmitter to the first and second image positions on the substrate surface;
(c) receiving the at least two trigger signals at a receiver wherein the two trigger signals comprise a first trigger signal corresponding to the first image position, and a second trigger signal corresponding to the second image position;
(d) receiving a portion of the optical signals at the receiver from the first image position and the second image position;
(e) processing the optical signals into an image; and
(f) displaying the image. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
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20. A method of substrate imaging, comprising:
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(a) determining an interval corresponding to at least one image position defining an image on a non-linearly moving substrate surface;
(b) transmitting optical signals from a transmitter to the image position;
then(c) receiving at a first sensor of the time-domain camera a portion of the optical signals from the image position;
(d) processing the optical signals into a first image;
(e) determining an integration interval for a second sensor of the time-domain camera corresponding to the non-linear movement of the substrate surface;
then(f) receiving the optical signals at the second sensor from the image position;
(g) processing the optical signals into a second image; and
(h) integrating the first and second images. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
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Specification