PURPOSE: To expose substrates of many sizes by the same small apparatus by obliquely moving stepwisely an XY stage for sequentially exposing a plurality of positions on a substrate to the X and Y feeding direction to shorten the processing time.

CONSTITUTION: A wafer W is placed on a wafer stage movable and rotatable in X, Y and Z directions, and the first region of the wafer contained in the movable region TE of the stage is exposed. The first shot S11 of the first region of the wafer W is first exposed, the stage is stepwisely moved, and S12, S13 are sequentially exposed in a stepping and repeating manner. At this time, the stage is simultaneously driven in X and Y directions to accelerate the stepping speed. When the first region of the wafer W is all exposed, the stage is moved to the delivery position, and the wafer is moved to expose the second region.