• EBeam Home
• News
• Remote Work
• Training
• Documentation
  • Overview
  • Safety
  • CAD
  • PatternPrep
  • JobFiles
  • Exposure
  • Alignment
  • JEOL Documentation
  • Operation
    • Basics
    • Sequence
    • Load
    • Calibrate
    • Expose
• Process
• Reference
• Site Index
• Site Map
• Website Updates

System Operation Overview

OK, so you've carefully planned your project, designed and processed your pattern data, setup and compiled your jobfiles...
At last, you're ready to actually do some e-beam writing. The actual operation of the system can be quite complex, because there are so many options, and the software can take quite a while to get used to the software design and functions. One key to success is to break down the task into smaller sub-tasks, and master each smaller task in sequence. So that's how I've broken up these instructions....

Now, this section is also fundamentally different from all design and setup steps so far in one very important detail: here in machine operation, you can actually do significant damage to the system if you are not fully knowledgeable and aware of just what you are doing, and perhaps most important, what you should not do. By design (for maximum capability and flexibility), the system has very few user limitations. As a beginning user of the machine, you can make all sorts of adjustments to the system that could render the machine degraded or even damaged. So step carefully and intentionally here. Know for sure what you're doing. If you don't know for sure that a particular operation is "safe", then don't do it. Stop, and ask first, before taking any steps that might be "risky".

So, with the warnings out of the way, this Operation section is divided into a "normal" sequence of operations. Note that your exposure may have special or different requirements from the most typical set listed here. Again, with a system as flexible and capable as this system, there are many options, some of which you will use, some you won't.

But before we expose, there are some basics about machine operation that you will need to be aware of. Next, I present a typical exposure sequence, which consists of physically loading your wafer in to the system, then calibrating the system for operation, then finally exposing your wafer.