A new versatile high speed pattern generator for nanolithography

A new versatile high speed pattern generator for nanolevel structure research and applications has been designed and developed. The digital signal processor (DSP) is employed in the pattern generator, so coordinates of exposure points inside. the primitive shapes can be calculated with a very high speed. The beam scanning of scanning electron microscope (SEM) is controlled by two sets of 16 bit digital-to-analog converters (DACs). Meanwhile the hardware can acquire SEM images, transfer data and control laser stage. Users can design various patterns and import common industrial layouts such as CIF/GDSII format files by the software package. The powerful display, drawing, and editing capabilities of the software package can accomplish different user necessities for pattern design. The experiments indicate the resolution can approach nanometer, and the field stitching accuracy better than 0.2 mum.