A lithography technique is a very important process among semiconductor manufacturing processes by which scaling-down of a semiconductor device is achieved, because the lithography technique is a process that generates a pattern of the device. Recently, according to high integrity of LSI, circuit line width required for a semiconductor device has been reduced year after year. In order to form a desired circuit pattern on the semiconductor device, a highly-accurate master image pattern (sometimes, referred to as a reticle or a mask) is needed. Herein, since an electron beam writing technique intrinsically has excellent resolution, the technique is used to produce a highly-accurate master image pattern.
In the above-described electron beam writing, uniformity of line width in more accurate sample plane, for example, a mask plane is required. Herein, in the electron beam writing, electrons are charged in a deflector, and thus, the electron beam is drifted, so that there occurs a phenomenon that position accuracy of the writing is degraded.
In order to improve the position accuracy of the writing, it is preferable that the drift of the electron beam is suppressed.
JP-A H06-120126 discloses a technique of manufacturing an aperture plate by using tungsten having high electron beam blocking ability so as to improve processing accuracy of an opening portion of the aperture plate.