ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 4 -- United States Patent no. 12,321,105, issued on June 3, was assigned to Carl Zeiss SMT GmbH (Oberkochen, Germany).
"Projection exposure apparatus for semiconductor lithography" was invented by Timo Laufer (Stuttgart, Germany) and Michael Stolz (Oberkochen, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A projection exposure apparatus for semiconductor lithography comprises an optical element and a temperature recording device for detecting a temperature on a surface of the optical element via electromagnetic radiation emanating from the surface of the optical element. The temperature recording device can comprise a filter for filtering the electromagnetic radiation."
The pa...