According to one exemplary embodiment, a projection lens having an object
plane and an image plane is provided and includes the following lens groups listed
objectwise to imagewise: (1) a first lens group having negative refractive power;
and (2) at least three other lens groups having a positive refractive power and
at least one other lens group having a negative refractive power. In one embodiment,
the projections lens includes a second lens group having a positive refractive
power; a third lens group having a negative refractive power; and fourth, fifth
and sixth lens groups having overall positive refractive power. The projection
lens having a numerical aperture of at least about 0.85 and is of a 1 waist
construction, with the waist defined in the first lens group and a primary
waist is defined in the third lens group.
