PURPOSE: To make the accuracy of an apparatus higher by supporting a processing station in a vibration-proof manner on a foundation, by supporting, on one hand, a wafer carrier device separately on the processing station and by providing, on the other hand, the processing station with the alignment means of a wafer.

CONSTITUTION: A wafer loader 1 for conducting taking a wafer out from a wafer cassette, causing orientation flats to coincide with each other, exchanging wafers with an exposure station, housing the wafer in the cassette, etc., is mounted on a frame 2 and installed on a floor. On the other hand, the exposure station 3 is mounted on a base 5 provided on a vibration-proof stand 4 for insulating a floor vibration and is composed of the lower half XY driving stage 6 and upper half prealignment θ driving stage 7. Also, a reduction projection optical system 8, prealignment scope 9, etc., are provided on the base 5. Thus, neither vibration by a carrier operation is transmitted to the exposure station nor exposure performance is deteriorated by the occurrence of a measurement error, etc., so that it is possible to obtain a highly reliable wafer carrier device with a simple constitution.