An exposure method for exposing a dense contact hole pattern onto a plate via a projection optical system includes the step of illuminating one of a binary mask and an attenuated phase shifting mask which one has the dense contact hole pattern by utilizing light from a light source and an illumination optical system, wherein the illuminating step uses an off-axis illumination that is polarized in a tangential direction when a value that is directed to half of a interval between centers of two adjacent contact holes in the dense contact hole pattern and is normalized by λ / NA is 0.25 × √2 or smaller, where λ is a wavelength of the light, and NA is a numerical aperture of the projection optical system at an image side.

A mask for LITI and a LITI method using the same wherein the mask includes patterns arranged in a direction perpendicular to a beam scanning direction and are arranged so that increasingly longer patterns are located towards the edge of the mask than in or near the center, and having center axes aligned to corresponding center axes of image patterns formed on a substrate.

There is provided a method which forms master masks used when a pattern of size larger than a region which can be exposed at one time is exposed on a to-be-exposed object (2). The pattern of the size larger than the region which can be exposed at one time is divided into a region (4) of low repetitiveness and a region (A) of high repetitiveness. A pattern of the region (4) of low repetitiveness is drawn on at least one first master mask (1-5, 1-6). Further, a pattern of the region (A) of high repetitiveness is drawn on at least one second master mask (1-1 to 1-4).

A device is disclosed for generating pattern data for unevenness that is randomly arranged on the surface of the reflective substrate of a reflective liquid crystal display device. The number of coordinates, a basic pitch, a movable range, and a dot diameter are entered from a data entry unit. An array generation unit regularly arranges base coordinates in two dimensions in accordance with the basic pitch. Coordinate displacement unit randomly displaces within the movable range at a portion of the basic coordinates to generate a multiplicity of displaced coordinates. Pattern generation unit arranges dot patterns with the dot diameter entered at each of the displaced coordinates generated to generate pattern data.

A method of recording identifiers, each including a group of character strings A and B including z₁ and z₂ characters, respectively, on plate members involves the use of a photomask of a first type and at least one photomask of a second type. The photomask of the first type has an opaque pattern defining the character string A. The photomask of the second type has an opaque pattern defining at least one of the characters of the character string B. The method further includes the steps of forming a photoresist layer on one of the plate members, selectively exposing the photoresist layer to a radiation through the photomask of the first type to form a latent image of the character string A in the photoresist layer, and forming a latent image of the character of the character string B in the photoresist layer through the photomask of the second type.

A method of recording different identifiers, each including at least one character, on multiple plate-type members, involves the use of a photomask of a first type and at least two photomasks of a second type. The photomask of the first type has an opaque pattern that defines a blank region to write the identifier thereon. Each of the photomasks of the second type has an opaque pattern defining the at least one character. The method further includes the steps of forming a photoresist layer on the surface of one of the plate-type members, exposing the photoresist layer, except the blank region, to a radiation through the photomask of the first type, and forming a latent image of the at least one character in the blank region through at least one of the photomasks of the second type.

Productivity of a semiconductor integrated circuit device is improved. According to how many times the photomask is used, a photomask having an opaque pattern made of metal and a photomask having an opaque pattern made of a resist film are properly used, and thereby an exposure treatment is performed.

A method of recording identifiers, each including a group of character strings A and B including z₁ and z₂ characters, respectively, on plate members involves the use of a photomask of a first type and at least one photomask of a second type. The photomask of the first type has an opaque pattern defining the character string A. The photomask of the second type has an opaque pattern defining at least one of the characters of the character string B. The method further includes the steps of forming a photoresist layer on one of the plate members, selectively exposing the photoresist layer to a radiation through the photomask of the first type to form a latent image of the character string A in the photoresist layer, and forming a latent image of the character of the character string B in the photoresist layer through the photomask of the second type.

A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device whereby a photoresist layer (3) is provided on a surface (1) of a slice of semiconductor material (2), after which two photomasks (4, 5; 50, 51; 60, 61; 70, 71) corresponding to adjoining portions of a pattern (6) to be formed in the photoresist are projected on the photoresist by means of a projection lens, with overlapping edges (7, 8). Strip-shaped transparent end portions (10, 11; 52, 53; 62, 63; 72, 73) of the two photomasks which are situated within this edge and which overlap one another in projection are provided with strip-shaped connection patterns (30; 54, 55; 64, 65; 74, 75) which overlap one another in projection and which exhibit a complementary transmittance in projection. To keep the quantity of computer data necessary for describing the photomasks comparatively small, the strip-shaped transparent end portions of the two photomasks overlapping one another in projection are provided at their edges only with strip-shaped connection patterns overlapping one another in projection.

A method of manufacturing a photomask for an optical memory, the photomask having two types of pattern where guide tracks (1b) and formatting pits (1a) are different in amount of optical transmission, including the steps of (a) forming on a transparent substrate (1) a thin film (2) of which light transmission amount depends upon its thickness; (b) forming a photoresist film (3) on the thin film; (c) exposing (4, 5) the photoresist film to light with different light intensities depending selectively on the guide tracks or formatting pits; (d) eliminating the photoresist film exposed to the more intense light (4) by the development until the thin film is revealed; (e) etching the exposed thin film; (f) eliminating the photoresist film until the thin film in the areas which were exposed to the less intense light (5) is revealed; (g) etching away the thin film until the transparent substrate is revealed in the areas which were exposed to the more intense light (4); and (h) eliminating the remnant photoresist.

A method for forming plate characters in a half-tone gravure platemaking process wherein the laser beam is moved so that it will be irradiated on a light sensitive material for forming a plate character on the light-sensitive material by exposure. The plate character is made with a frame portion and a filling portion. The frame portion is formed with continuous groove-form cells which have a predetermined length and width and dot-form projections are formed in the groove-form cells for preventing ink flow. The filling portion is formed by dot-form cells which have a shadow-portion dot percentage.

A method and group of masks for manufacturing a device whereby illumination of a photoresist layer (4) takes place by subsequent illumination through partial masks (1) and (2).

During these separate illuminations, complementary scales of grey are obtained in the connection region (7, 8) of the images (5, 6), the total illumination in the connection region (7, 8) being nevertheless complete.

According to the invention, good results are obtained when the partial masks (1) and (2) have complementary transparency gradients in the ends (9, 10) corresponding to the scales of grey. Figs. 1a and 1b.

The present invention provides a polymer compound containing a repeating unit shown by the following general formula (1). There can be provided a polymer compound usable in a negative resist composition that can achieve high resolution of 50 nm or less and small LER and cause very few defects, a negative resist composition using the polymer compound, and a patterning process using the negative resist composition.

A light pattern exposure method is by irradiating ArF excimer laser light to a resist film through a photomask. The photomask includes a transparent substrate and a pattern of optical film of a material comprising a transition metal, silicon, nitrogen and oxygen, with contents thereof falling in a specific range. The photomask may be irradiated with ArF excimer laser light in a cumulative dose of at least 10 kJ/cm².