Lithography system and projection method

Method for operating a lithography system in which a pattern is to be projected on to a target surface, comprising:

• using a plurality of writing beams in the form of probe forming beams, generated in a charged particle beams column part of said system, and scanned over said target surface for writing said pattern,
• modulating the writing beams in said column by blanking each writing beam individually within the column or not,
• writing said pattern being performed by scanning each individual writing beam in a direction transverse to a mechanical movement of said target relative to said column,
• positioning pattern features on said target using a virtual grid divided into grid cells of a dimension such that each probe forming beam covers a plurality of grid cells, and
• locating, an edge of a feature of a size larger than that of one of said grid cells virtually independent from said grid size by not writing at least one set of grid cells in at least the last scan line for writing said feature, which set is larger than a number of grid cells and smaller than the number of grid cells required for writing the dimension of each said probe forming beam,
• wherein said writing is completed during a single pass of said probe forming beams.