JPH03296212A - Charged particle beam exposure and apparatus therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable the exposure even in the case of exposing a desired chip having a larger volume of pattern data over the capacity of exposure data memory of a charged particle beam exposure apparatus, by a method wherein pattern data in the whole region of the chip to be exposed are divided into ones in a plurality of regions and the patterns in the divided regions are exposed in order. CONSTITUTION:In this electron beam exposure apparatus, a semiconductor substrate, namely a wafer 7 is placed on a stage. Next, a chamber is evacuated to high vacuum condition and an electron beam 2 is generated. Simultaneously, a position controller 4a and a shaping beam controller 3a receive a pattern data signal and beam shaping signal of every region from a pattern dividing apparatus 9a to form a pattern 5. The data processing for dividing the pattern data of a disk memory 8 and extracting pattern data in respective regions is executed for each exposure region in order until all the desired chip pattern data are exposed. Therefore, even in the case where the predetermined chip having a larger value of pattern data over the capacity of exposure data memory is to be exposed, a charged beam exposure and apparatus which achieve the exposure without lowering the throughput can be attained.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to charged beam exposure for exposing a desired pattern to a charged beam on a resist that absorbs and reacts with charged beam energy on a substrate or a thin film. The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus thereof.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, when exposing a desired pattern to a resist that absorbs and reacts with a charged beam on a substrate or a thin film by irradiating the charged beam, all of the chip data is The data is read into a memory for exposure pattern data, and the pattern is exposed with a charged beam using all of the data as exposure data.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

The pattern data used when exposing a desired pattern using a charged beam exposure device is written into the exposure pattern data memory in the exposure device, regardless of the amount of data of the desired chip pattern to be exposed. .

Then, the pattern data is sequentially read out in the order of appearance and a desired pattern is exposed. The exposure pattern data memory used at this time is usually about 60 MByte to 130 MByte at maximum. However, in recent years,
Chip pattern data is increasing, for example, 4MB
i tDRAM has a data amount of approximately 45 MByte, and even larger 16M and 64Mbytes.
In tDRAM, each is approximately 200MByte,
It is approximately 600MByte. In other words, the increase in the amount of pattern data for devices is faster than the development speed of memory, and as mentioned above, the amount of data stored in DRAM, which has a large amount of pattern data, is written into the exposure pattern data memory of the exposure equipment. That has become impossible. Therefore, it is no longer possible to expose a desired chip having such a large amount of data. Further, as a countermeasure to this problem, it is possible to install a plurality of data memories, but this method requires a long data access time and a large exposure time, which is not a good idea.

An object of the present invention is to provide a charged beam exposure method and apparatus having means for solving this problem.

[Means to solve the problem]

The charged beam exposure method of the present invention is a charged beam exposure method in which a desired pattern is exposed using a charged beam on a resist that absorbs and reacts with charged beam energy on a substrate or a thin film, and the entire area of a chip to be exposed is The pattern data is divided into a plurality of regions, and the patterns of the divided regions are sequentially exposed.

The charged beam exposure apparatus of the present invention has two substrates, or
In a charged beam exposure device that exposes a desired pattern using a charged beam on a resist that absorbs and reacts with charged beam energy on a thin film, the pattern data of the entire area of the chip to be exposed is divided into multiple areas, and this division is performed. The present invention is characterized in that it includes an exposure pattern data exposure area dividing device having means for sequentially exposing patterns of the areas.

[Effect]

According to the present invention, instead of reading all of the pattern data of a desired chip into the exposure data memory of the charged beam exposure device at once, it is read for each arbitrary exposure area and sequentially exposes each area to expose all the patterns. Since exposure is performed, exposure is possible even when exposing a desired chip having pattern data that exceeds the capacity of the exposure data memory of the charged beam exposure apparatus.

〔Example〕

Next, the present invention will be explained with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an electron beam exposure apparatus of the present invention. First, an example of an electron beam exposure apparatus will be explained. The electronic beam exposure apparatus of the present invention includes:
As shown in FIG. 1, an electron gun 1 that generates an electron beam 2
Then, an irradiation lens (not shown), a shaping lens 3, and a reduction lens (not shown) shape the electron beam 2 into a predetermined shape and converge it on the resist 6 surface, and the converged electron beam is divided into two parts. a position deflector 4 that scans and deflects within the area to form a pattern 5 on the resist 6 on the wafer 7;
and a pattern dividing device 9a that supplies pattern data of the divided area to this positional tilt lefter 4a.
1, an exposure data memory 10 that temporarily stores pattern data signals for each region, and a pattern data transfer device that sequentially transfers pattern data signals for each region to the pattern dividing device; Extract data from a disk memory 8 (external storage device) that stores data as CAD data, divide it into pattern data for multiple areas, and store pattern data for each area sequentially in the exposure data memory 10. Pattern data exposure area division. It has a device 9.

Next, the operation of this electron beam exposure apparatus will be explained. First, a wafer 7, which is a semiconductor substrate, is placed on a stage. Next, the chamber is made into a high vacuum and an electron beam 2 is generated. At the same time, a pattern data signal and a beam forming signal for each region are received from the position control device 4a and the forming beam control device 3a or the pattern dividing device 9a, thereby forming pattern 5. In this way, the take process of dividing the pattern data in the disk memory 8 and extracting the pattern data of each area is sequentially performed for each exposure area until all of the desired chip pattern data is exposed. Also, in this case, it is necessary to rearrange the pattern data in advance in units of arbitrary exposure areas, use a certain take, and insert a code to interrupt reading into the exposure data memory [O] for each exposure area. .

Although this embodiment describes electron beam exposure, it can also be applied to ion beam exposure.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, the present invention divides the entire chip area into a plurality of regions, extracts each divided region one by one, and scans and deflects a charged beam using the extracted pattern data. Even when exposing a desired chip having pattern data, it is possible to obtain a charged beam exposure method and apparatus that can perform exposure without reducing throughput.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an electron beam exposure apparatus showing an embodiment of the present invention. ]... Electron gun, 2... Electron beam, 3... Shaped lens, 3a... Shaped beam control device, 4... Position tip lever, 4a... Position control device, 5
...Pattern, 6...Register 1-17...Wafer, 8...Disk memory, 9...Pattern exposure area dividing device, 9a...Pattern dividing device, 10...Exposure data memory, 11...Pattern data transfer device.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a charged beam exposure method in which a desired pattern is exposed using a charged beam on a resist that absorbs and reacts with charged beam energy on a substrate or a thin film, the entire area of a chip to be exposed is A charged beam exposure method characterized by dividing pattern data into a plurality of regions and sequentially exposing patterns in the divided regions. 2. In a charged beam exposure device that exposes a desired pattern using a charged beam on a resist that absorbs and reacts with charged beam energy on a substrate or a thin film, pattern data of the entire area of the chip to be exposed is transferred to multiple areas. 1. A charged beam exposure apparatus comprising an exposure pattern data exposure area dividing apparatus having means for sequentially exposing patterns of the divided areas.