Patent Number: 
Section: claims

1. A pattern definition device for use in a particle-beam exposure apparatus, said device being adapted to be irradiated with a beam of electrically charged particles and pass the beam through a plurality of apertures defining the shape of beamlets passing though said apertures, wherein the apertures are arranged within a pattern definition field comprising a plurality of lines of apertures, wherein the apertures are spaced apart along said lines of apertures by a first integer multiple of the width of an aperture and are offset between neighboring lines of apertures by a fraction of said integer multiple of the width, wherein said apertures are associated with corresponding blanking openings arranged along lines of blanking openings, wherein each blanking opening is associated with a deflector controllable by a blanking signal such that said deflector is switchable between a first deflection state in which particles passing through said blanking opening are allowed to travel along a path and a second deflection state in which particles passing through said blanking opening are deflected off said path, and wherein for the lines of blanking openings, the blanking openings of a line of blanking openings are partitioned into multiple groups such that the deflectors of the blanking openings of each group are fed a common group blanking signal, wherein the group blanking signal of each group of a line of blanking openings is controlled independently of the group blanking signals of the other groups of the same line of blanking openings. 2. The device of claim 1, comprising an aperture plate for forming said beamlets and a blanking plate for controlling the passage of selected beamlets. 3. The device of claim 1, wherein the groups have at least two different sizes with regard to the numbers of blanking openings in the respective groups. 4. The device of claim 3, wherein the numbers of blanking openings in the groups correspond to powers of two multiplied with a uniform base number. 5. The device of claim 3, wherein the numbers of blanking openings in all groups except one group correspond to powers of two multiplied with a uniform base number. 6. The device of claim 3, wherein the number of all groups in a line is smaller than 16 and the size of the largest group with regard to the respective number of blanking openings is at least four times the size of the smallest group. 7. The device of claim 1, wherein the partitioning of blanking openings into groups is the same for all lines. 8. The device of claim 7, wherein corresponding groups of the lines of blanking openings are positioned adjacent to each other, forming stripes arranged perpendicular to the orientation of the lines of blanking openings. 9. The device of claim 7, wherein the partition of blanking openings into groups is the same for all lines of blanking openings, but with at least two different sequences of the groups within the respective lines of blanking openings. 10. The device of claim 1, wherein the pattern definition field is divided perpendicularly to the orientation of lines of blanking openings into at least two domains, each domain being composed of a plurality of staggered lines of blanking openings, wherein the lines of one domain are offset to the lines of the next domain by a fraction of the width of the lines, the apertures of each line of each domain representing at least one group. 11. The device of claim 10 wherein the pattern definition field is divided into two domains, wherein each group of the first domain has a corresponding group of the second domain with equal number of blanking openings in the respective group, wherein the lines of the second domain are offset to the lines of the first domain by a fraction of the width of the lines. 12. The device of claim 1, wherein the blanking signal is applied to the individual blanking openings through time delay circuitry for generating a time delay of said signal corresponding to the offsets of the respective blanking openings along the line. 13. The device of claim 1, wherein the width of the apertures is equal to the width of the lines. 14. The device of claim 1, wherein the width of the apertures associated with selected groups of blanking openings have a width smaller than the width of the lines, the remaining apertures having a width equal to the width of the lines. 15. The device of claim 1, wherein the group blanking signals are fed to the pattern definition field partly at a side running parallel to the orientation of lines, partly at a side running perpendicular. 16. The device of claim 1, wherein the shape of the apertures is substantially equivalent to a two-dimensional geometrical base shape of a contiguous covering of the plane. 17. The device of claim 16, wherein the base shape is a square. 18. The device of claim 1, wherein a group comprises at least one blanking opening for which the line feeding the group blanking signal to said blanking opening(s) comprises a component which is accessible on a surface of the device by a structural modification and which is adapted to change its transmissivity for the group blanking signal between a electrical connecting state and a blocking state upon treatment by said structural modification. 19. The device of claim 18, wherein the component is realized as a conductor segment adapted to be irreversibly modified between an electrical well-conducting and a non-conducting state. 20. The device of claim 1, wherein the deflection means are adapted to deflect, in the switched off state, the particles to an absorbing surface of said exposure apparatus mounted after the device as seen in the direction of the particle beam. 21. The device of claim 16, wherein the shape of the apertures is equivalent to a two-dimensional polygonal base shape of a contiguous covering of the plane, with rounded and/or beveled edges. 22. The device of claim 21, wherein the area of the shape of the apertures is the same as that of the original polygonal base shape. 23. The device of claim 21, wherein the shape of the apertures is a corner-rounded square. 24. A charged particle beam exposure apparatus, comprising:a charged particle source for generating a beam of charged particles; andan aperture plate comprising a plurality of openings and a plurality of deflectors, each deflector being associated with a corresponding opening, wherein each is controllable by a signal so as to be switchable between a first state and a second state, wherein, in said first state, a given deflector allows particles of the beam of charged particles to pass through a corresponding opening along a predetermined path and wherein, in said second state, the given deflector deflects particles of the beam of charged particles away from the predetermined path;wherein the plurality of openings are arranged in plural groups such that each group comprises multiple openings, and wherein the openings of a given group are electrically connected with each other so as to be commonly controlled by said signal. 25. The charged particle beam exposure apparatus of claim 24, wherein at least two groups of openings have a different number of openings. 26. The charged particle beam exposure apparatus of claim 25, wherein the number of openings of each of the at least two groups corresponds to a power of two multiplied with a common integer number. 27. The charged particle beam exposure apparatus of claim 25, wherein the number of openings of all except one groups corresponds to a power of two multiplied with a common integer number. 28. The charged particle beam exposure apparatus of claim 24, wherein the openings of each group are disposed directly adjacent to each other. 29. The charged particle beam exposure apparatus of claim 24, wherein pairs of openings of each group are electrically connected by electrical delay elements. 30. The charged particle beam exposure apparatus of claim 29, wherein the electrical delay element is configured to generate the signal to control the deflection electrode of an opening. 31. The charged particle beam exposure apparatus of claim 24, further comprising an absorbing surface disposed such that the particles of the beam of charged particles passing through an opening and deflected away from the predetermined path are incident on the absorbing surface. 32. The charged particle beam exposure apparatus of claim 24, further comprising a wafer stage for mounting a wafer thereon, and charged particle optics configured to direct the particles of the beam of charged particles passing through an opening and along the predetermined path onto a wafer mounted on the wafer stage. 33. The charged particle beam exposure apparatus of claim 24, wherein each deflector comprises a deflection electrode.