Lithographic apparatuses suitable for, and methodologies involving, complementary e-beam lithography (CEBL) are described. In an example, a method of data compression or data reduction for e-beam tool simplification involves providing an amount of data to write a column field and to adjust the column field for field edge placement error on a wafer, wherein the amount of data is limited to data for patterning approximately 10% or less of the column field. The method also involves performing e-beam writing on the wafer using the amount of data.

Lithographic apparatuses suitable for, and methodologies involving, complementary e-beam lithography (CEBL) are described. In an example, a blanker aperture array (BAA) for an e-beam tool is described. The BAA is a non-universal cutter.

One or more embodiments of the present disclosure are directed toward improved methods of fabricating a semiconductor device utilizing multi-level electron beam lithography (e-beam lithography), an alignment marker for multi-level e-beam lithography, and a semiconductor device including the alignment marker. A method of fabricating a semiconductor device may include: forming an alignment marker in a substrate, the alignment marker including tantalum; determining, utilizing a backscatter electron detector of an electron beam lithography tool, a location of an edge of the alignment marker based on an atomic number contrast between the alignment marker and the substrate; and forming, utilizing the electron beam lithography tool, at least one transistor in the substrate based on the location of the edge of the alignment marker.

A multi charged particle beam writing apparatus includes a maximum irradiation time acquisition processing circuitry to acquire, for each shot of multi-beams, a maximum irradiation time of irradiation time of each of the multi-beams, a unit region writing time calculation processing circuitry to calculate, using the maximum irradiation time for each shot, a unit region writing time by totalizing the maximum irradiation time of each shot of a plurality of times of shots of the multi-beams which irradiate a unit region concerned during stage moving, for each unit region of a plurality of unit regions obtained by dividing a writing region of a target object, a stage speed calculation processing circuitry to calculate speed of the stage for each unit region so that the stage speed becomes variable, by using the unit region writing time and a stage control processing circuitry to variably control the stage speed.

Provided are methods to improve tomography by creating fiducial holes using charged particle beams, and using the fiducial holes to improve the sample positioning, acquisition, alignment, reconstruction, and visualization of tomography data sets. Some versions create fiducial holes with an ion beam during the process of milling the sample. Other versions create in situ fiducial holes within the TEM using the electron beam prior to acquiring a tomography data series. In some versions multiple sets of fiducial holes are made, positioned strategically around a region of interest. The fiducial holes may be employed to properly position the features of interest during the acquisition, and later to help better align the tilt-series, and improve the accuracy and resolution of the final reconstruction. The operator or software may identify the holes to be tracked with tomography feature tracking techniques.

In an embodiment, a method includes: placing a wafer on an implanter platen, the wafer including integrated circuit dies; measuring a position of the wafer by measuring a position of an outer edge of the integrated circuit dies with a camera; determining an angular displacement between the position of the wafer and a reference position of the wafer; and rotating the implanter platen by the angular displacement.

In an embodiment, a method includes: placing a wafer on an implanter platen, the wafer including integrated circuit dies; measuring a position of the wafer by measuring a positions of an outer edge of the integrated circuit dies with a camera; determining an angular displacement between the position of the wafer and a reference position of the wafer; and rotating the implanter platen by the angular displacement.

In an embodiment, a method includes: placing a wafer on an implanter platen, the wafer including alignment marks; measuring a position of the wafer by measuring positions of the alignment marks with one or more cameras; determining an angular displacement between the position of the wafer and a reference position of the wafer; and rotating the implanter platen by the angular displacement.

A method for calibrating a charged-particle spectrometer including generating a monochromatic incident charged-particle beam having a first energy; generating an incident laser beam having a second energy; illuminating a surface with the laser beam to generate an evanescent electromagnetic field in a region near the surface; spatially and temporally superimposing the laser beam and the incident charged-particle beam in the region to couple them via the evanescent electromagnetic field by generating a charged-particle beam as an output beam with a spectrum having distinct peaks of energies that are spectrally separated by a value equal to the second energy; measuring, by the spectrometer, all or part of the spectrum of the output beam, then determining a variation in energy of at least two of the distinct energy peaks with respect to the first energy; and determining a value of the scale factor S and a value of the offset.