Nuflare Technology, Inc.

Hidekazu Takekoshi

Kazuhiko Inoue

Rieko Nishimura

Yoshihiro Izumi

A charged particle beam inspection apparatus includes a movable stage, configured to hold a substrate placed on the movable stage; a stage control circuit, configured to continuously move the movable stage in a direction opposite to a first direction; a deflection control circuit, configured to control a deflector to collectively deflect multiple beams to an N&#xd7;N' small region group including N small regions, the collective deflection includes performing tracking deflection of the multiple beams and collectively deflecting the multiple beams to a new group of N&#xd7;N&#x2032; small regions and sequentially perform a first and a second step, a detector configured to detect secondary electrons emitted from the substrate due to irradiation of the substrate with the multiple beams, and combinations of a value of N and a value of M are set such that the greatest common divisor of the value of N and the value of M is 1.

Charged particle beam inspection apparatus and charged particle beam inspection method

A multiple-electron-beam-image acquisition apparatus includes an electromagnetic lens to receive and refract multiple electron beams, an aberration corrector, disposed in a magnetic field of the electromagnetic lens, to correct aberration of the multiple electron beams, an aperture-substrate, disposed movably at the upstream of the aberration corrector with respect to an advancing direction of the multiple electron beams, to selectively make an individual beam of the multiple electron beams pass therethrough independently, a movable stage to dispose thereon the aberration corrector, a stage control circuit, using an image caused by the individual beam selectively made to pass, to move the stage to align the position of the aberration corrector to the multiple electron beams having been relatively aligned with the electromagnetic lens, and a detector to detect multiple secondary electron beams emitted because the target object surface is irradiated with multiple electron beams having passed through the aberration corrector.

Multiple electron beam image acquisition apparatus, and alignment method of multiple electron beam optical system

An electron beam image acquisition apparatus includes a deflector to deflect an electron beam, a deflection control system to control the deflector, a measurement circuitry to measure, while moving a stage for placing thereon a substrate on which a figure pattern is formed, an edge position of a mark pattern arranged on the stage by scanning the mark pattern with an electron beam, a delay time calculation circuitry to calculate, using information on the edge position, a deflection control delay time which is a delay time to start deflection control occurring in the deflection control system, a correction circuitry to correct, using the deflection control delay time, a deflection position of the electron beam, and an image acquisition mechanism to include the deflector and acquire an image of the figure pattern at a corrected deflection position on the substrate.

Electron beam image acquisition apparatus, and electron beam image acquisition method

A multi charged particle beam inspection apparatus includes a plurality of sensors, arranged inside or on a periphery of a secondary electron image acquisition mechanism, to measure a plurality of interfering factors, a determination circuit to determine, for each interfering factor, whether change exceeding a corresponding threshold is a first case which returns to the original state within a predetermined time period, or a second case which does not return to the original state even if the predetermined time period has passed, and a comparison circuit to input a reference image of a region corresponding to the secondary electron image acquired, and compare the secondary electron image with the reference image, wherein in the case where change of the second case occurs, the secondary electron image acquisition mechanism suspends the acquisition operation of the secondary electron image, and calibrates a change amount of the multiple charged particle beams.

Multi charged particle beam inspection apparatus, and multi charged particle beam inspection method

According to one aspect of the present invention, a method of correcting a position of a stage mechanism, includes generating a two-dimensional map of a distortion amount at a position of a stage by applying a distortion amount of a position in a first direction of the stage at each of measured positions in a second direction as a distortion amount of a position in the first direction of the stage at each position in the second direction at each position in the first direction and by applying a distortion amount of a position in the second direction of the stage at each of measured positions in the first direction as a distortion amount of a position in the second direction of the stage at each position in the first direction at each position in the second direction; and correcting position data by using the two-dimensional map.

Position correction method of stage mechanism and charged particle beam lithography apparatus

A writing apparatus includes a writing unit configured to write a first pattern onto a first mask substrate and a second pattern being complementary to the first pattern onto a second mask substrate using a charged particle beam, and an addition unit configured to add a positional deviation amount of the first pattern having been written on the first mask substrate to a writing position of the second pattern, wherein the writing unit writes the second pattern at the writing position on the second mask substrate, where the positional deviation amount of the first pattern has been added.

Writing apparatus and writing method

An average write speed M is calculated by averaging write speeds for blocks of a tentative block size La, and write speed variation &#x3c3; of the blocks with respect to the average write speed M is calculated (Step S). A maximum speed Vmax is calculated by accelerating and then decelerating (or decelerating and then accelerating) a stage when moving the stage by the width of one of the blocks of the tentative block size La (Step S). When the relationship 'Vmax&#x2212;M&#x2267;&#x3c3;' does not hold, the tentative block size La is increased (Step S). When the relationship 'Vmax&#x2212;M&#x2267;&#x3c3;' holds, the tentative block size La is set as an optimal block size Lb (Step S).

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Fujisawa, Japan

Hidekazu Takekoshi