Charged Particle Beam Drawing Apparatus Parallel Storage Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
The miniaturization of semiconductor devices requires a charged particle beam drawing apparatus to achieve a narrower drawing grid, which increases the size of drawing data for controlling the blanking operation, leading to a decrease in throughput due to the need for the apparatus to remain in a standby state until storage of drawing data is complete.
Innovation Solution
A drawing apparatus with a blanking control unit that includes a first storage device, a second storage device, and a third storage device, where the blanking controller controls operations to store and read drawing data in parallel between these devices, allowing for simultaneous storage and retrieval of data, thereby reducing standby time and improving throughput.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If the drawing grid pitch is narrowed to achieve miniaturization of semiconductor devices, then the manufacturing precision is improved, but the size of drawing data increases, causing standby time to increase and throughput to decrease
Solution Approach 1:
The storage system is divided into multiple storage devices to handle the large volume of drawing data required for narrow pitch drawing. By segmenting the storage across multiple devices, the system can access different portions of the drawing data simultaneously, reducing the time to load and process the extensive data needed for high-precision narrow pitch drawing, thereby maintaining throughput despite increased data requirements
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary storage of drawing data in the first and second storage devices before the actual drawing operation. This advance preparation allows the data to be ready for rapid access during the narrow pitch drawing process, eliminating standby time that would otherwise occur when loading large amounts of high-resolution drawing data, thus preserving throughput while achieving high manufacturing precision
2Device complexity
If a single storage device is used to store all drawing data, then the device complexity is reduced, but the apparatus must remain in standby state until data storage is complete, lowering throughput
Solution Approach 1:
The storage system is segmented into multiple storage devices (first, second, and third storage devices) with specific functions. This segmentation enables parallel data operations - while one storage device is being written to, another can be read from, eliminating the sequential bottlenecks of a single storage device. The increased complexity is justified by the significant improvement in throughput, as the system no longer needs to remain in standby state waiting for data storage to complete
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses the first and second storage devices for preliminary data storage and the third storage device for active drawing operations. This preliminary action allows data to be prepared and staged in advance in parallel with other operations, so that when drawing needs to access the data, it is already available. This eliminates the standby state that would occur with a single storage device, improving throughput while managing complexity through functional division
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention provides a drawing apparatus including a generation device configured to generate drawing data, a blanking device configured to blank a beam, and a blanking controller includes a first storage device, a second storage device, and a third storage device configured to respectively store the drawing data generated by the generation device, and being configured to control operations of the first storage device, the second storage device, and the third storage device so that an operation of storing the drawing data generated by the generation device in a selected one of the first storage device and the second storage device, and an operation of reading out the drawing data stored in the other of the first storage device and the second storage device, and storing the readout drawing data in the third storage device are executed in parallel.