Systems and methods providing electron beam writing to a medium

Abstract

A method for electron-beam writing to a medium includes positioning the medium within an e-beam writing machine so that the medium is supported by a stage and is exposed to an e-beam source. The method also includes writing a pattern to the medium using a plurality of independently-controllable beams of the e-beam source, in which the pattern comprises a plurality of parallel strips. Each of the parallel strips is written using multiple ones of the independently-controllable beams. The electron beam writing method of the invention is more effective.

Description

technical field [0001] This invention relates generally to semiconductor processing, and more particularly to techniques for writing to media using electron beams. Background technique [0002] Electron beam (electron-beam or e-beam) writing involves a process that uses electron beams to alter media. More specifically, in some processes, an electron beam is used to write the designed pattern into the media. Examples of media written using electron beams include semiconductor wafers and photomasks, such as fused silica and chrome photomasks. The process of electron beam writing provides a way to reduce the resolution limitations of ordinary optical techniques. [0003] A single electron beam is used in some common systems to write the designed pattern into a photomask. In a common system, in order to reduce the beam-stitching-effect, multiple exposures using a single electron beam are used to apply the designed dosage into the medium. Dose is related to the amount of elec...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

For example, as mentioned above, the use of a single electron beam with multiple exposures has the problem of being too slow, that is, for some applications it cannot achieve sufficient throughput

In addition, some commonly used mass electron beam technology uses the line step method, which also has the problem of throughput because of the influence of the time used to write the overlapping area.

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