Patent Number: 
Section: claims

1. A focused ion beam system for processing a specimen by irradiating the specimen with a focused ion beam, said focused ion beam system comprising:an ion beam source for producing the ion beam;condenser lenses for focusing the produced ion beam;multiple variable apertures for selectively limiting current of the ion beam focused by the condenser lenses;a deflection portion for deflecting the focused ion beam whose current has been selectively limited by the apertures;an objective lens for focusing the deflected ion beam at a desired position on the specimen;a specimen stage for moving the specimen;an input portion for accepting data entered by a human operator;a control portion comprising a computer readable medium containing instructions to cause said control portion to first select optical conditions for the condenser lenses, the multiple variable apertures, the deflection portion, and the objective lens for establishing a beam size based on the data entered into said input portion comprising the size of the processed region and the degree of precision wherein the beam size is increased for larger processing regions but not so as to provide unacceptable precision, and second automatically calculate processing and scanning conditions including dwell time per hit position, dwell position spacing and frame in accordance with said selected optical conditions and cut depth and specimen kind or dose entered into the input portion wherein the dwell position spacing is reduced sufficient to suppress discontinuous processing, the frame time is increased to reduce blanking tail to a minimum, and the hit position spacing and dwell time per hit position are set so the scan speed does not decrease below a threshold value at which the specimen is disfigured;a setting condition data output portion for outputting data based on the optical conditions and processing and scanning conditions selected and calculated by said control portion; anda driver portion for driving the condenser lenses, the multiple variable apertures, the deflection portion, and the objective lens based on the data output from said setting condition data output portion about the optical conditions and the processing and scanning conditions. 2. A focused ion beam system as set forth in claim 1, wherein said processing and scanning conditions automatically set by said control portion include a dwell time of the ion beam per hit point on the specimen and a dwell point spacing. 3. A focused ion beam system as set forth in claim 1, wherein said control portion calculates a diameter of the ion beam used for processing according to the size of the processed region on the specimen, the size being entered into said input portion, and first selects an optical condition file matched to the calculated beam diameter and based upon the degree of finish selected the optical condition file adjacent the first selected file is selected. 4. A focused ion beam system as set forth in claim 2, wherein said control portion calculates a diameter of the ion beam used for processing according to the size of the processed region on the specimen, the size being entered into said input portion, and selects an optical condition file matched to the calculated beam diameter. 5. A focused ion beam system as set forth in claim 1, wherein said control portion calculates a diameter of the ion beam used for processing according to the size of the processed region on the specimen, the size being entered into said input portion, and selects an optical condition file matched to the calculated beam diameter. 6. A focused ion beam system as set forth in claim 3, wherein said control portion automatically selects said optical condition file based on the calculated diameter of the beam, the file defining a mode of operation in which the condenser lenses, objective lens, multiple variable apertures, and deflection portion are driven by the driver portion. 7. A focused ion beam system as set forth in claim 4, wherein said control portion automatically selects said optical condition file based on the calculated diameter of the beam, the file defining a mode of operation in which the condenser lenses, objective lens, multiple variable apertures, and deflection portion are driven by the driver portion. 8. A focused ion beam system as set forth in claim 5, wherein said control portion automatically selects said optical condition file based on the calculated diameter of the beam, the file defining a mode of operation in which the condenser lenses, objective lens, multiple variable apertures, and deflection portion are driven by the driver portion.