Recent advances in electron-beam lithography for the high-volume production of VLSI devices

Recent advances in scanning-electron-beam lithography techniques have increased the efficiency of serial exposure by several orders of magnitude over the basic SEM approach. A spectrum of shaped-beam systems which combine projection and scanning techniques has been developed for various lithographic applications. The first generation of electron-beam production systems at IBM have demonstrated the feasibility of the shaped-beam technique under manufacturing conditions. More advanced shaping techniques such as VSS and Character Projection provide the means to make a high-resolution lithography for VLSI technically and economically feasible.