Character projection EB data conversion system combined with throughput analyzer

An electron beam (EB) data conversion system for a character projection (CP) writing method has been constructed. The system has been developed based on an EB data conversion system for a variable-shaped beam (VSB), and a formatting module for CP writing was added. In addition, several functions have been developed to analyze CP writing patterns, and combined with the system. The functions aim to select the CP writing patterns that best reduce writing time and to achieve the highest throughput. The new system was applied to a real LSI pattern to test the conversion function and to estimate the conversion speed. A model pattern of a 1 Gbit dynamic random access memory was successfully converted to EB data format. The conversion processing time was less than 14 min for each layer.