Essential reduction of stitching errors in electron-beam lithography using a multiple exposure technique

Electron-beam lithography is the technique of choice to generate in a flexible and accurate way structures and components in the micrometer region and below. Due to its particular exposure strategy, i.e. matching equidistant subfields to a complete pattern, electron-beam systems show typical displacement effects known as stitching errors. These errors can be of dramatic disturbance if they occur in high resolution patterns. This paper presents an exposure scheme which essentially reduces stitching errors by using a multiple exposure technique. The influence of this technique on the value of stitching errors and its interference with the process window as well as total processing time is reported.