JPH0666248B2 - Beam scanning drawing device - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a beam scanning type drawing apparatus for scanning a beam to draw a predetermined pattern on an object to be drawn, and particularly to a data format conversion operation and conversion. The drawing work based on the format data can be processed in parallel.

[Background technology and its problems]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, as a device for directly drawing a pattern on a sample such as a PCB (Print Circuit Board), a beam scanning drawing device using a laser beam or an electron beam has been developed. This device scans a laser beam or the like in a direction (X scanning direction) orthogonal to this moving direction while continuously moving the sample in one direction (Y scanning direction), and controls so-called blanking of the beam. By doing so, a predetermined pattern is drawn. Further, it has a feature that even a large-area sample can be drawn in a relatively short time.

Here, an example of a conventional beam scanning drawing apparatus will be described with reference to FIG. Beam scanning type drawing device is the device body 80
And a control unit 100. That is, the device body 80 is a laser oscillator 81 that is a laser light source that emits a laser beam such as an Ar laser, a reflecting mirror 82a that changes the optical path of the beam,
82b, acousto-optic modulator for blanking the beam (hereinafter A
OM) 83, a polygon mirror 84 that reflects a beam and operates on the sample 90 in the X direction, an Fθ lens 85, a cylindrical lens 86, an objective mirror 87, and a sample stage 91 on which the sample 90 is mounted. ing.

The polygon mirror 84 is rotationally driven by the first motor 96, and the rotary shaft of the polygon mirror 84 is provided with a rotary encoder 99 for detecting the amount of rotation of the mirror 84. The objective mirror 87 for focusing the laser beam on the sample 90 is tilted and fixed in the X-axis direction. The sample stage 91 is continuously moved in the Y scanning direction by the second motor 98, and on the lower surface side of the sample stage 91, a magnetic scale 88 for detecting the position of the stage 91 in the Y scanning direction and this scale 88. There is provided a sensor 89 cooperating with. A sample 90 such as a PCB is placed on a sample stage 91 that can move in the Y scanning direction.

On the other hand, the control unit 100 basically includes a CPU 101, a magnetic tape device 102, a magnetic disk device 103, and a drawing pattern processing circuit 10.
4, scan control circuit 108, drive control circuit 109, and various drivers (hereinafter abbreviated as DRV) 111a, 111b. The drawing pattern processing circuit 104 is composed of a direct memory access circuit (DMA) 105, a bit conversion circuit 106 and a blanking signal generation circuit 107, and is given from the pattern data which is intermediate format data from the CPU 101 and the scanning control circuit 108. A blanking signal, which is a machine signal, is generated based on a shift clock or the like. Then, the AOM 83 is driven by the DRV 111a based on the blanking signal generated by the drawing pattern processing circuit 104. The scanning control circuit 108 generates a shift clock based on the pulse signal from the encoder 99 and sends a predetermined control command to the drawing pattern processing circuit 104.

Further, the drive control circuit 109 controls the drive of various motors, and the DRV 111b to which the circuit 109 is input drives the motors 96 and 98.

In the conventional beam scanning type drawing apparatus configured as described above, the laser beam emitted from the laser oscillator 81 is reflected by the reflection mirror 82a and then radiated to the AOM 83 for beam blanking. The laser beam reflected by the polygon mirror 84 passes through the Fθ lens 85 and the cylindrical lens 86, is further reflected by the objective mirror 87, and is irradiated and coupled to the upper surface of the sample 90.

By the way, the CAD data, which is the source data stored in the magnetic tape device 102, is converted into intermediate format data by the CPU 101 and stored in the magnetic disk device 103 as drawing waiting data. And the drawing pattern processing circuit 10
4, once loaded into the memory of CPU 101, then DMA
Pattern data, which is intermediate format data of the PCB, is given from the CPU 101 via the bus 110, and a shift clock based on the rotation of the rotary encoder 99 directly connected to the polygon mirror 84 is given from the scan control circuit 108.

Therefore, the AOM 83 can blank the laser beam from the laser oscillator 81 by the blanking signal based on the machine data generated from the blanking signal generation circuit 107 of the drawing pattern processing circuit 104. On the other hand, the stage 91 on which the sample 90 is placed is a motor 98, a drive control circuit 10
Based on the output signal from the scanning control circuit 108 via 9, the movement of the polygon mirror 84 is controlled in the Y scanning direction while being synchronized with the rotation of the polygon mirror 84.

In this way, the laser beam emitted onto the sample 90 is scanned in the X scanning direction which is inclined at a constant angle in the X axis direction orthogonal to the moving direction (Y scanning direction) of the sample stage 91. ing.

Thus, a predetermined pattern based on the pattern data is drawn on the sample 90 by the raster scan method. By preparing pattern data that is intermediate format data from source data created by CAD etc. here, it is possible to significantly reduce the amount of data to be prepared and to perform highly accurate drawing in a short time to improve productivity. It was In addition,
The same applies to the case of the inspection device that inspects the drawn predetermined pattern, but since it overlaps with the case of the drawing, the description is omitted.

However, in the above-mentioned conventional beam scanning type drawing apparatus which draws a predetermined pattern and / or inspects the drawn predetermined pattern, whether the source data is once converted into the intermediate format data as shown in the above-mentioned conventional example. Regardless, the so-called data preparation work for converting the source data into the machine data is complicated and enormous, and there is a problem that not only the time burden increases, but also the facility economy, the operating economy, and the installation space become excessive, which hinders its spread. This problem has been clogged up as a serious technical problem at present when high-density drawing is required.

That is, the so-called machine data that can be directly used by the drawing device is unique data of the drawing device and the like, and therefore varies depending on the model. In the case of the above-mentioned conventional example, it is bit pattern data, but it changes like video image data depending on the model. Moreover, the machine data must have an arrangement that matches the operation sequence of the device. Therefore, generally CA
The source data supplied as D data may be in a graphic representation format that has a polygonal contour, or in a vector representation format that specifies the aperture of a specific shape and the movement locus of the aperture. When converted to computerized machine data, the amount of data increases from several tens of times to several hundreds of times. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 6 (A) in the conventional apparatus shown in FIG. 5, if a so-called batch system in which five kinds of data preparation work are completed and then continuously drawn is adopted, a long data preparation work time is required. T in _R only becomes a bad thing extremely production efficiency as a whole can not be drawn. Even if the parallel processing system shown in FIG. 6 (B) is used, this is somewhat effective, but it is not so effective in complicating the program. Data preparation time (T _R1 ~T _R5) is because no different to the T _R basically. On the other hand, a system (see FIG. 7) is conceivable in which only data preparation work, that is, data format conversion, layout, data verification, and the like are integrated into one computer and a plurality of drawing devices are connected to the computer. However, in order to continuously operate the drawing device and the like connected to it, the computer only becomes large in size and cannot be said to be a fundamental measure. In addition, due to fluctuations in the production plan, it caused a situation in which the facility economy and the operating economy were rather disadvantageous especially when the operating rate was low. Of course, it is not practical to equip each drawing device or the like with a computer dedicated to the preparatory work, since it only worsens the problems of the above equipment and installation space.

The above problem is a common defect that occurs when the source data is directly converted into the machine data, and when the source data is converted into the intermediate format data of one or a plurality of stages and then again converted into the machine data.

[Object of the Invention]

It is an object of the present invention to provide a beam scanning type drawing apparatus capable of dramatically improving equipment economy, operation economy and the like by processing data preparation work and drawing work in parallel.

[Means and Actions for Solving Problems]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in consideration of the above conventional problems, and an apparatus main body for scanning a beam to draw a predetermined pattern on an object to be drawn and / or inspecting the drawn predetermined pattern, source data, and a control program. And the like, a main storage device capable of simultaneously loading two or more programs stored in the external storage device, a plurality of CPUs sharing this main storage device, and loads of these CPUs are equalized. And a system control unit for controlling each of the C
A distributed processor for reducing the load on the PU, and a multiprocessor formed including the system control unit, the main storage device, a high-speed bus connecting the CPU and the distributed processor, respectively. The object is achieved by being configured so that the data format conversion work for converting the source data into the unique format data of the device body and the drawing work and / or the inspection work of the device body can be processed in parallel.

Therefore, since the external storage means and the apparatus main body are connected to the multiprocessor, the program stored in the external storage means is loaded into the main storage device, and the load is equalized by the system control unit based on the program. Since multiple CPUs can be operated and the main body of the device can be operated via a distributed processor, data preparation work and drawing work can be processed in parallel at the same time. Therefore, even when a long data preparation work time is required, the drawing work can be continuously executed, so that the productivity can be improved.

〔Example〕

An embodiment of a beam scanning drawing apparatus according to the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

The embodiment is shown in FIGS. 1 to 4, and the beam scanning drawing apparatus comprises a multiprocessor 10, an external storage means 20, an operation monitoring means 30, an interface 40 and an apparatus main body 80.

Here, the multiprocessor 10 includes a main storage device 11 that can load two or more programs at the same time, a system control unit 12 that speeds up response time by converting the core of the operating system into firmware, a high-speed bus 110, and a system. Four CPUs 1 that share the main storage device 11 via the control unit 12
The load of 01 (101a, 101b, 101c, 101d) is the system control unit 1
Equalized by queuing control and task switching control of 2, C
The PU 101 is configured to function efficiently as a whole.

The external storage means 20 is composed of a magnetic tape device 102 similar to the case of the conventional example, and a magnetic disk device 103 capable of resident a plurality of data preparation programs in addition to a control program in the program area. The intermediate format data converted through the multiprocessor 10 is stored as drawing waiting data.

The operation monitoring means 30 is used by the operator to issue commands to the multiprocessor 10 via the distributed processor 17b, and the console 31 and the graphic display 32 are provided.
It is formed from and.

Since the device body 80 is the same as the conventional device body shown in FIG. 5, the description of the configuration is omitted. It should be noted that the drawing pattern processing circuit 104, the operation control circuit 108, the drive control circuit 109, the drivers 111a and 111b, etc. included in the conventional control unit 100 shown in FIG. The interface 40 is provided, and the interface 40 is provided with other digital circuits, analog circuits, and the like.

Next, the operation of the beam scanning type device 1 configured as described above will be described.

First, the operating system program is loaded from the magnetic disk device 103 of the external storage means 20 into the main storage device 11 of the multiprocessor 10 by operating the console 31 or the like of the operation monitoring means 30, and similarly, the device control program and the data preparation program. Etc. are also loaded. Incidentally, the magnetic disk device 103 is provided with a data area in addition to the program area, and the intermediate format data is loaded by the program and read out at appropriate times.

The control program, which controls the entire drawing work sequence, has roughly a drive function and a data transfer function. The drive function is to drive the first motor 96 and the like of the main body device 80, and specifically, the interface 40 is instructed by the CPU 101 as a macro command. Also,
The data transfer function is a function of reading necessary data from the magnetic disk device 103 to the main storage device 11 and transferring the read data to the interface 40 as the drawing work progresses. The CPU 101 also has a function of processing data conversion in software in the CPU 101 or hardware in the interface 40 in real time.

Now, the data preparation work, which is one of the characteristic technical matters of the present invention, is executed as follows. In this embodiment, the blanking signal (1,0) output from the blanking signal generation circuit 107 (accommodated in the interface 40) of the drawing pattern processing circuit 104 is used in the AOM of the apparatus main body 80 as in the conventional apparatus.
The blanking signal is formed from the machine data in the trapezoidal graphic representation format in which the upper side and the lower side are parallel to each other through the bit conversion circuit 106 as shown in FIG. 2D.

However, it is extremely difficult to convert the source data, which is the geometric format data as shown in FIG. 2 (A) or (B), into the machine data specific to the apparatus at once, and even from the viewpoint of the equipment capacity and the like. It lacks in reality. Therefore, the second
The source data having the format shown in FIG.
It is converted into intermediate format data as shown in FIG. That is, each of the source data is divided into square areas (cells) to be divided into blocks, and the cut pieces thus divided are distributed to the corresponding cell addresses C _ij to be converted into intermediate format data.
Subsequently, the intermediate format data is converted into trapezoidal machine data in the graphic representation format shown in FIG.
For example, 1 of the intermediate format data shown in (C)
The cell (C _mn ) which is one is converted into machine data (X = ₁₁ , Y = h) by designating X ₁ = 0 and X ₂ = 0.
Therefore, depending on the cell, it may be necessary to further divide and convert into machine data, but basically it is the same as the above case. In the source data of FIG. 2 (A), the rectangle is defined as (X, Y), θ, h, l, and in the case of (B), the same rectangle is P ₁ (X ₁ , Y ₁ ). , P ₂ (X ₂ , Y ₂ ), P ₃ (X ₃ ,
Y ₃ ), P ₄ (X ₄ , Y ₄ ).

In this way, the data format conversion is performed.

Subsequently, layout and data verification are performed. The layout is such that the machine data converted into the above-mentioned format is read out, arranged in a predetermined manner, and arranged in a matrix so that the data can be output to the bit conversion circuit 106 in an order matched with the operation sequence of the apparatus, and is performed as shown in FIG. . That is, the machine data A, B, ... F of FIG. 3 (A) converted from the intermediate format are arranged as shown in FIG. 3 (B) and are read out in the order according to the operation sequence. further,
The laid-out machine data is automatically verified by a predetermined program whether it includes the correctness of the layout work or the like and conforms to the source data. In this embodiment, it is formed so that it can be displayed on the graphic display 32 and visually judged.

Data preparation work including format conversion for converting the above source data into intermediate format data, data layout and data verification is performed.

The drawing work is performed by the apparatus main body 80 via the interface 40 based on a command from the multiprocessor 10. However, although the drawing pattern processing circuit 104, the scanning control circuit 108, the drive control circuit 109 and the like are accommodated in the interface 40 in the system configuration as described above, the drawing operation itself is the conventional beam scanning type shown in FIG. Since it is the same as the case of the device 1, detailed description thereof is omitted.

Here, in this embodiment, the system control unit 12 equalizes the loads of the four CPUs 101 based on the control programs and various data loaded or read from the external storage means 20, and the data preparation work is performed via the distributed processors 17a and 17b. And drawing work are efficiently processed in parallel.

Therefore, according to the first embodiment, the multiprocessor including the system control unit 12 that shares the four CPUs 101 (101a, 101b, 101c, 101d) connected by the high-speed bus 110 and manages the equalization of the loads of these CPUs. With 10, data preparation work and drawing work can be processed in parallel at the same time, so there is no need to stop the drawing work for a long time of data preparation work, which can dramatically improve the production efficiency. In other words, the beam scanning drawing apparatus 1 having the conventional configuration shown in FIG. 5 can have a processing capacity about 3.2 times as large as that of the conventional beam scanning drawing apparatus 1. This is because in the case of this embodiment, the beam scanning type drawing apparatus 1 shown in FIG. 5 has three computers equipped with the CPU 101, the magnetic tape unit 102, the magnetic disk unit 103, etc. Tape device
The system value can be reduced to 1/2 or less due to the configuration such that each of the 102 and the magnetic disk device 103 can be one unit, and if a general-purpose computer is taken as an example, the installation space can be reduced to 1 / 2.5 and it can be operated. The cost can be reduced to 1 / 2.5 or less. Furthermore, 3
In the case of a combination of one computer and one device main body 80, data transfer between the computers and its operation are required. However, when the multiprocessor 10 of the present embodiment is included and formed, the operation is performed. It is understood that the data transfer time is unnecessary and the high speed processing is possible and the production efficiency is improved from this point.

Further, since the intermediate data has a format specified by the cell address, it can be stored in the magnetic disk device 103 with a small amount of data as drawing waiting data, so that the magnetic disk device 103 itself can be downsized and its reading time can be shortened. . From this point as well, it is effective in achieving high speed and simplification of equipment.

Another example of the layout of the data preparation work is shown in FIG. The format-converted machine data C, A, B shown in FIG. 4 (A) is merged with A + C, B + C as shown in FIG. 4 (B) to perform layout. That is, the source data can be converted into machine data with a small data amount by converting the data into the intermediate format data. It shows one embodiment.

In the above embodiment, the multiprocessor has four CPUs 101.
(101a, 101b, 101c, 101d) and two distributed processors 17a, 1
Although it is configured from 7b and the like, the point is that the number of units is not limited as long as the data preparation work for converting the source data into the machine data and the drawing work can be processed in parallel. This is not limited to the number of connected device bodies 80 or the like. Also interface
Reference numeral 40 denotes the drawing pattern processing circuit 10 of the control unit 100 in the conventional example.
4, the scanning control circuit 108 and the like are included, but they may be separate control units and only have a signal conversion function such as a digital circuit and an analog circuit.

Further, the apparatus main body 80 has been described as having only the drawing function, but it may have an inspection function at the same time or may have only an inspection function. In short, the source data is converted into machine-specific machine data, The present invention can be applied to any type of beam scanning based on machine data. Therefore, to give an example of the industrial subdivided device names, an electron beam wafer drawing device, a laser printed circuit board drawing device, and a transfer device, which are known to input pattern data as source data and draw the pattern directly, An electron beam mask / reticle drawing device, a laser reticle drawing device, a laser film drawing device, and the like, which belong to the original drawing device to be mass-produced by using, are the source data from the CAD system or the like or the drawing device. A reticle / mask inspection device, a wafer inspection device, a printed circuit board inspection device, a film inspection device, etc., which receives the pattern data output from the device as an input and compares and inspects the acceptance / rejection of the product or original placed on the drawing device with the corresponding pattern data. Is mentioned. In the case of such an inspection device, the data preparation work includes inspection arrangement and statistical processing work for convenience of report creation and output.

〔The invention's effect〕

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY The present invention is excellent in that the data preparation work and the drawing work and the inspection work can be concurrently processed / executed at the same time, so that the productivity can be dramatically improved and the facility economy and the operating economy can be reduced and the installation space can be narrowed. Have an effect.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram showing a first embodiment of a beam scanning type drawing apparatus according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is an explanatory view of the contents of format data conversion of the same data preparation work, and FIG. 3 is the same of the data preparation work. Layout contents explanatory drawing, FIG. 4 is a layout contents explanatory drawing in the case of the second embodiment, and FIG.
FIG. 6 is an overall configuration diagram of a conventional beam scanning type drawing apparatus, and FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of a relationship between data preparation work and drawing work in the conventional beam scanning type drawing apparatus, (A) is a batch processing type,
(B) shows a case of a parallel processing type. And FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a beam scanning type drawing apparatus when a computer dedicated to the data preparation work is adopted. 1 ... Beam scanning drawing device, 10 ... Multiprocessor, 11 ... Main memory device, 12 ... System control unit, 20 ...
External storage means, 30 ... Operation monitoring means, 31 ... Console, 32 ... Graphic display, 40 ... Interface, 80 ... Device body, 90 ... Sample, 100 ... Control unit, 101 ... CPU, 102 ...... Magnetic tape device, 103 ...... Magnetic disk device, 104 ...... Drawing pattern processing circuit, 110 ......
Express bus.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A device main body for scanning a beam to draw a predetermined pattern on an object to be drawn and / or inspecting the drawn predetermined pattern, an external storage means for storing source data, a control program, etc. A main storage device capable of simultaneously loading two or more programs stored in the storage means, a plurality of CPUs sharing this main storage device, and a system control unit for equalizing the loads on these CPUs. A distributed processor for controlling the apparatus body according to the instructions of the CPU and reducing the load on each CPU, and a high-speed connection for connecting the system control unit, the main storage device, and each CPU and the distributed processor, respectively. A multiprocessor including a bus; and a data processor for converting the source data into a format data specific to the device body. Beam scanning lithography apparatus, wherein a and Matto conversion work and drawing work and / or inspection work of the apparatus main body and configured to allow parallel processing.