A charged particle beam lithography apparatus, includes a plurality of multiple-beam sets, each of which including a plurality of irradiation sources each generating an independent charged particle beam, a plurality of objective deflectors, each arranged for a corresponding charged particle beam, and configured to deflect the corresponding charged particle beam to a desired position on a substrate, and a plurality of electrostatic or electromagnetic lens fields each to focus the corresponding charged particle beam on the target object; a plurality of common deflection amplifiers, arranged for each multiple-beam set, and each of the plurality of common deflection amplifiers being configured to commonly control the plurality of objective deflectors arranged in a same multiple-beam set; a plurality of individual ON/OFF mechanisms configured to individually turn ON/OFF a beam irradiated from each irradiation source; and one or more multiple-beam clusters including the plurality of multiple-beam sets.

A method for exposing a pattern in an area on a surface using a charged particle beam system is disclosed and includes inputting an original set of exposure information for the area and inputting a target post-proximity effect correction (PEC) maximum dose. A local pattern density is calculated for the area of the pattern based on the original set of exposure information. A pre-PEC maximum dose is determined for the area. The original set of exposure information is modified with the pre-PEC maximum dose.

A charged particle beam lithography apparatus, includes a plurality of multiple-beam sets, each of which including a plurality of irradiation sources each generating an independent charged particle beam, a plurality of objective deflectors, each arranged for a corresponding charged particle beam, and configured to deflect the corresponding charged particle beam to a desired position on a substrate, and a plurality of electrostatic or electromagnetic lens fields each to focus the corresponding charged particle beam on the target object; a plurality of common deflection amplifiers, arranged for each multiple-beam set, and each of the plurality of common deflection amplifiers being configured to commonly control the plurality of objective deflectors arranged in a same multiple-beam set; a plurality of individual ON/OFF mechanisms configured to individually turn ON/OFF a beam irradiated from each irradiation source; and one or more multiple-beam clusters including the plurality of multiple-beam sets.

A method of pattern data preparation includes the following steps. A desired pattern to be formed on a surface of a layer is inputted. A first set of beam shots are determined, and a first calculated pattern on the surface is calculated from the first set of beam shots. The first calculated pattern is rotated, so that a boundary of the desired pattern corresponding to a non-smooth boundary of the first calculated pattern is parallel to a boundary constituted by beam shots. A second set of beam shots are determined to revise the non-smooth boundary of the first calculated pattern, thereby calculating a second calculated pattern being close to the desired pattern on the surface. The present invention also provides a method of forming a pattern in a layer.

In one embodiment, a writing data generation method is for generating writing data used by a multi-charged particle beam writing apparatus. The writing data generation method includes referring to library data in which a vertex sequence including a plurality of vertices is registered, and extracting a portion of an outer line of a figure contained in design data, the portion corresponding to the vertex sequence, and representing the extracted portion by information which identifies the vertex sequence and information which indicates a connection method for the plurality of vertices of the vertex sequence, and generating the writing data.

Methods for fracturing or mask data preparation are disclosed in which a set of single-beam charged particle beam shots is input; a calculated image is calculated using a neural network, from the set of single-beam charged particle beam shots; and a set of multi-beam shots is generated based on the calculated image, to convert the set of single-beam charged particle beam shots to the set of multi-beam shots which will produce a surface image on the surface. Methods for training a neural network include inputting a set of single-beam charged particle beam shots; calculating a set of calculated images using the set of single-beam charged particle beam shots; and training the neural network with the set of calculated images.

The present disclosure provides one embodiment of an IC method. First pattern densities (PDs) of a plurality of templates of an IC design layout are received. Then a high PD outlier template and a low PD outlier template from the plurality of templates are identified. The high PD outlier template is split into multiple subsets of template and each subset of template carries a portion of PD of the high PD outlier template. A PD uniformity (PDU) optimization is performed to the low PD outlier template and multiple individual exposure processes are applied by using respective subset of templates.

The purpose of the present invention is to provide a charged particle beam device with which it is possible to identify, to a high degree of accuracy, repeat patterns generated by a multiple exposure method such as SADP or SAQP. In order to achieve this purpose, there is proposed a charged particle beam device for: irradiating a first position on a sample with a charged particle beam to form an irradiation mark on the sample; after the formation of the irradiation mark, scanning the charged particle beam on a first visual field which includes the first position and which is larger than the irradiation mark, and thereby acquiring a first image; scanning the charged particle beam on a second visual field which includes the first position, which is larger than the irradiation mark, and which is in a different position from the first visual field, thereby acquiring a second image; and synthesizing the first image and the second image so as to overlap the irradiation marks included in the first image and the second image.

Position shifts caused by charging phenomena can be corrected with high accuracy. A charged particle beam writing apparatus includes an exposure-amount distribution calculator calculating an exposure amount distribution of a charged particle beam using a pattern density distribution and a dose distribution, a fogging charged particle amount distribution calculator calculating a plurality of fogging charged particle amount distributions by convoluting each of a plurality of distribution functions for fogging charged particles with the exposure amount distribution, a charge-amount distribution calculator calculating a charge amount distribution due to direct charge using the pattern density distribution, the dose distribution, and the exposure amount distribution, and calculating a plurality of charge amount distributions due to fogging charge using the plurality of fogging charged particle amount distributions, a position shift amount calculator calculating a position shift amount of a writing position based on the charge amount distribution due to direct charge and the plurality of charge amount distributions due to fogging charge, a corrector correcting an exposure position using the position shift amount, and a writer exposing the corrected exposure position to a charged particle beam.

A multiple charged particle beam writing apparatus includes a distribution coefficient calculation circuitry to calculate, using defective beam information based on which a defective beam can be identified, for each design grid in a plurality of design grids being irradiation positions in design of multiple charged particle beams, a distribution coefficient for each of three or more beams, for distributing a dose to irradiate a design grid concerned in the plurality of design grids to the three or more beams, excluding the defective beam, whose actual irradiation positions are close to or approximately coincident with the design grid concerned, such that the position of the gravity center of each distributed dose coincides with the position of the design grid concerned and the sum of each distributed dose after distribution coincides with the dose to irradiate the design grid concerned.