To irradiate a target with a beam of energetic electrically charged particles, the beam is formed and imaged onto a target, where it generates a pattern image composed of pixels. The pattern image is moved along a path on the target over a region to be exposed, and this movement defines a number of stripes covering said region in sequential exposures and having respective widths. The number of stripes is written in at least two sweeps which each have a respective general direction, but the general direction is different for different sweeps, e.g. perpendicular to each other. Each stripe belongs to exactly one sweep and runs substantially parallel to the other stripes of the same sweep, namely, along the respective general direction. For each sweep the widths, as measured across said main direction, of the stripes of one sweep combine into a cover of the total width of the region.

A semiconductor device manufacturing system includes: a PL evaluation apparatus that evaluates wavelengths of photoluminescent light produced by individual optical modulators on a single semiconductor wafer; an electron beam drawing apparatus that draws patterns of diffraction gratings of laser sections that adjoin respective optical modulators on the wafer; and a calculation section that receives the wavelengths of the photoluminescent light from the PL evaluation apparatus, calculates densities of respective diffraction gratings so that differences between the wavelengths of the photoluminescent light and oscillating wavelengths of the laser sections become a constant, and sends the densities calculated to the electron beam drawing apparatus for drawing respective diffraction grating patterns on the respective laser sections.

In one embodiment, a charged particle beam drawing apparatus includes a drawing unit that draws a pattern in a drawing area on a substrate and a control processing circuitry that controls the drawing unit via a process including receiving drawing data with a hierarchical correction map input to the control processing circuitry. The drawing data with the hierarchical map includes a plurality of files in which division maps are respectively described in files in units of subframes. Each division map includes dose correction information associated with corresponding one of blocks of the drawing area. The process further includes generating shot data by performing a data conversion process on the drawing data, reading a division map corresponding to a block in the area to be drawn from the hierarchical correction map, calculating a dose, and controlling the drawing unit based on the shot data and the calculated dose.

A pattern correction amount calculating apparatus includes: an accepting unit that accepts pattern information; a micro side group acquiring unit that acquires a micro side group, which is a group of continuous sides forming a contour of a pattern figure indicated by the pattern information, and is a group of micro sides that are each small enough to satisfy a predetermined condition; a virtual side acquiring unit that acquires a virtual side, which is a side that approximates micro sides contained in the micro side group; a virtual side correction amount calculating unit that calculates a virtual side correction amount, which is a correction amount for the virtual side; and a micro side correction amount calculating unit that calculates micro side correction amounts, which are correction amounts respectively for the micro sides contained in the micro side group corresponding to the virtual side, using the virtual side correction amount.

In one embodiment, a data generating apparatus generates data including an irradiation amount of a beam in each pixel for an energy beam writing apparatus. The data generating apparatus includes a target irradiation amount calculating section configured to calculate a first irradiation amount in each pixel, an irradiation amount rounding section configured to round the first irradiation amount based on an irradiation amount control unit and calculate a second irradiation amount, a difference calculating section configured to calculate a first difference between the first irradiation amount and the second irradiation amount, a difference sum calculating section configured to calculate a sum of the first differences in a first group of a plurality of adjacent pixels, and an allocating section configured to allocate an irradiation amount based on the irradiation amount control unit and the sum to a pixel in the first group.

In one embodiment, A charged particle beam drawing apparatus includes an irradiation amount resetting processing circuitry changing the irradiation amount in the shot data to the irradiation amount lower limit value when the irradiation amount defined in the shot data is less than the irradiation amount lower limit value, a shot size adjustment processing circuitry changing the shot size defined in the shot data, based on an amount of the change in the irradiation amount, a shot position adjustment processing circuitry changing the shot position defined in the shot data, based on an amount of the change in the shot size, and a drawing device drawing a pattern by irradiating the substrate with the charged particle beam, using the shot data in which the irradiation amount, the shot size, and the shot position have been changed.

In one embodiment, a settling time determination method includes deflecting a charged particle beam by applying a voltage outputted from an amplifier to a first deflector while changing a deflection settling time, and writing an evaluation pattern, measuring a position of the evaluation pattern, and determining a position displacement amount of the measured position from a design position, performing fitting of the position displacement amount for the deflection settling time on a first output waveform of the amplifier, and determining a deflection settling time in which the position displacement amount is within a predetermined range.

A charged particle beam writing apparatus includes a circuitry to set, when a charged particle beam is deflected to move between plural small regions by a deflector, plural first mesh regions obtained by virtually dividing a chip region into regions by length and width sizes same as those of each of the plural small regions; determine whether a shot figure having been assigned exists in each of the plural first mesh regions; a circuitry to perform, for the plural first mesh regions, merging of two or more adjacent first mesh regions; a circuitry to measure, for each of plural second mesh regions each obtained by merging, the number of first mesh regions each having been determined that an assigned shot figure exists therein; and a circuitry to generate a map for each chip, where measured number of first mesh regions with the shot figure is defined as a map value.

In one embodiment, a charged particle beam writing method includes dividing a figure pattern defined in writing data into a plurality of shot figures, virtually dividing a writing target substrate into a plurality of mesh regions, and calculating a correction irradiation amount to correct proximity effect and middle range effect for each of the mesh regions based on a position of the figure pattern, calculating an irradiation amount for each of the plurality of shot figures using the correction irradiation amount, calculating an insufficient irradiation amount at an edge portion of the shot figure based on the irradiation amount, resizing the shot figure based on the insufficient irradiation amount, and writing the resized shot figure on the writing target substrate using a charged particle beam in the irradiation amount.

A charged particle beam writing method includes acquiring a pair of a reference dose and a backscatter coefficient for proximity effect correction using a first settling time, acquiring a first relation between a temperature rise amount and a critical dimension variation amount using a second settling time shorter than the first settling time, the backscatter coefficient and the reference dose acquired, calculating a temperature correction parameter depending on a temperature rise amount, for correcting a dose, by using the first relation, and a second relation on a dose and a pattern critical dimension in a case of using the first settling time, calculating a beam irradiation dose by the reference dose and a dose coefficient obtained from the backscatter coefficient of the pair acquired, and the temperature correction parameter, and writing a pattern with a beam based on the dose calculated using the second settling time.