Charged-particle beam exposure method and apparatus

A charged-particle beam exposure apparatus comprising a source of a charged particle beam, a wafer stage having mounted thereon a wafer that is exposed by said charged particle beam, a stencil mask disposed between said source of said charged particle beam and said wafer stage and formed with a plurality of mask patterns through which said charged particles beam is passed and shaped, a mask part deflect controller for controlling deflection conditions of said charged particle beam that is illuminated on said stencil mask, a wafer part deflect controller for controlling deflection conditions of said charged particle beam passed through said stencil mask with respect to said wafer, wherein said charged-particle beam exposure apparatus comprises:

• a mask memory for holding mask information data which are input to said mask part deflect controller, the mask information data being indicated for every one of said plurality of mask patterns with an index;
• and
• a data memory for holding pattern exposure data which designate a predetermined one of said plurality of mask patterns with said index and also indicate deflection conditions of said charged particle beam passed through said stencil mask with respect to said wafer;
• said index which designates said predetermined one of said plurality of mask patterns being output to said mask memory by said data memory and also said deflection conditions of said charged particle beam passaged through said stencil mask with respect to said wafer being input to said wafer part deflect controller by said data memory;
• said mask information data corresponding to said index being output to said mask part deflect controller by said mask memory to which said index has been input.

A charged-particle beam exposure method, comprising the steps of:

• a) generating a charged-particle beam;
• b) shaping the charged-particle beam based on data corresponding to a selected one of a plurality of mask patterns determined by an index;
• and
• c) deflecting the charged-particle beam to a selected location, based on pattern exposure data including data corresponding to the selected location, the pattern exposure data also including the index for selecting the data corresponding to the selected one of the plurality of mask patterns used in said step (b).

A charged-particle beam exposure method, comprising the steps of:

• a) storing a plurality of first data strings, each of the plurality of first data strings including location data and index data;
• b) storing a plurality of second data strings, each of the plurality of second data strings including mask shape data and being identified by an index;
• c) generating a charged-particle beam;
• d) shaping the charged-particle beam based on the mask shape data included within a selected one of the plurality of second data strings identified by the index determined by the index data of a selected one of the plurality of first data strings, to provide a shaped charged-particle beam;
• and
• e) directing the shaped charged-particle beam based on the location data included within the selected one of the plurality of first data strings.