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 apparatus according to an embodiment includes a unit to generate first blocks in a writing region in which at least one of writing groups respectively using different base doses is to be written, a unit to generate second blocks for proximity effect correction, in the each of the regions of the groups, a unit to calculate an area density in each of the first blocks, a unit to perform a weighting calculation on the area density for each of the first blocks by using a base dose of a corresponding group, a unit to calculate a dose coefficient for proximity effect correction, for each of the second blocks, by using a corresponding weighted area density, and a unit to calculate a dose by using the base dose of the each of the groups and the dose coefficient of the each of the second blocks.

Methods include inputting an array of pixels, where each pixel in the array of pixels has a pixel dose. The array of pixels represents dosage on a surface to be exposed with a plurality of patterns, each pattern of the plurality of patterns having an edge. A target bias is input. An edge of a pattern in the plurality of patterns is identified. For each pixel which is in a neighborhood of the identified edge, a calculated pixel dose is calculated such that the identified edge is relocated by the target bias. The array of pixels with the calculated pixel doses is output. Systems for performing the methods are also disclosed.

A method for projecting a particle beam onto a substrate, the method includes a step of calculating a correction of the scattering effects of the beam by means of a point spread function modelling the forward scattering effects of the particles; a step of modifying a dose profile of the beam, implementing the correction thus calculated; and a step of projecting the beam, the dose profile of which has been modified, onto the substrate, and being wherein the point spread function is, or comprises by way of expression of a linear combination, a two-dimensional double sigmoid function. A method to e-beam lithography is also provided.

According to one aspect of the present invention, a charged particle beam writing apparatus includes correction figure data generation circuitry configured to generate pattern data of a correction figure pattern for correcting a figure portion detected, where the pattern data includes dose information to identify a dose of the correction figure pattern; correction figure pattern data conversion circuitry configured to convert the pattern data of the correction figure pattern into correction figure pattern pixel data defining a value corresponding to a dose for the each pixel, based on pixel setting common to that of the writing pattern pixel data; and combined-value pixel data generation circuitry configured to generate, for the each pixel, combined-value pixel data by adding the value defined in the writing pattern pixel data and the value defined in the correction figure pattern pixel data.

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.

A charged particle beam writing apparatus includes an area density calculation unit to calculate a pattern area density weighted using a dose modulation value, which has previously been input from an outside and in which an amount of correction of a dimension variation due to a proximity effect has been included, a fogging correction dose coefficient calculation unit to calculate a fogging correction dose coefficient for correcting a dimension variation due to a fogging effect by using the pattern area density weighted using the dose modulation value having been input from the outside, a dose calculation unit to calculates a dose of a charged particle beam by using the fogging correction dose coefficient and the dose modulation value, and a writing unit to write a pattern on a target object with the charged particle beam of the dose.

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.

In a rasterized exposure method, in order to correct for a non-linear relationship between the position of a feature edge (dCD) of a pattern element boundary and the nominal position of the boundary as expressed through the dose of exposure (d) of the edge pixel, a position correction for edge positions is employed. The position correction includes: determining a position value describing said edge position, determining a corrected position value based on the position value using a predefined non-linear function, and modifying the pattern to effectively shift the pattern element boundary in accordance with the corrected position value. The non-linear function describes the inverse of the relationship between a nominal position value (d), which is used as input value during exposure of the pattern, and a resulting position (dCD) of the pattern element boundary generated when exposed with said nominal position value.

In a charged-particle multi-beam writing method a desired pattern is written on a target using a beam of energetic electrically charged particles, by imaging apertures of a pattern definition device onto the target, as a pattern image which is moved over the target. Thus, exposure stripes are formed which cover the region to be exposed in sequential exposures, and the exposure stripes are mutually overlapping, such that each area of said region is exposed by at least two different areas of the pattern image at different transversal offsets (Y1). For each pixel, a corrected dose amount is calculated by dividing the value of the nominal dose amount by a correction factor (q), wherein the same correction factor (q) is used with pixels located at positions which differ only by said transversal offsets (Y1) of overlapping stripes.