Abstract:
An electron beam lithography system to conduct drawing on a sample with an electron beam within a first chamber. A second chamber is provided which is separated from the first chamber and has a volume smaller than that of the first chamber. A member is provided which is capable of placing the sample on a part separable from an X-Y stage within the first chamber and moving the separable part with the sample thereon to a position for drawing on the sample with the electron beam within the first chamber. A loading arrangement is provided for removing the separable part and the sample from the X-Y stage and moving the separated part to the second chamber from the first chamber. The separable part of the X-Y stage is independently removable from the sample and from the second chamber to outside of the second chamber.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of the Invention 
     The present invention relates to an electron beam lithography system for drawing circuit patterns to a wafer and a mask by utilizing the electron beam and particularly to an electron beam lithography system which is just suitable for shortening the drawing time and improving the rate of the apparatus operation. 
     2. Description of the Related Art 
     In an electron beam lithography system, an X-Y stage for moving a sample is required to draw a pattern on the entire part of the sample such as wafer and mask because the drawing area of the sample on which a pattern is drawn is larger than the deflection range of electron beam. Moreover, since the drawing by the electron beam is conducted under the vacuum condition, the XY stage must be placed within a vacuum chamber which is called a stage-chamber. 
     In the electron beam lithography system, two or more vacuum chambers are necessary to realize effective pattern drawing, because the stage chamber has a large volume and longer time will be required until the predetermined degree of vacuum required for drawing by electron beam can be attained from the atmospheric condition. Therefore, in an ordinary electron beam lithography system, the stage chambers maintain the low pressure atmosphere and the other chambers change the atmosphere of sample for the vacuum/atmospheric conditions. 
     Structure of such electron beam lithography system will be explained with reference to FIGS. 10 and 11. 
     FIG. 10 is an upper cross-sectional view illustrating an example of structure of an electron beam lithography system of the related art. FIG. 11 is a side cross-sectional view of an electron beam lithography system of FIG.  10 . 
     This example is described in the “Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology B, Vol. 10, No.6, November/December 1992, P.2759” and is composed of three vacuum chambers. 
     In this technology, a sample exchange chamber  12  and an evacuation chamber  20  are also provided in addition to the stage chambers  2   a . In the sample exchange chamber  12  provided adjacently to the stage chamber  2   a  via a vacuum valve  11 , two sheets of sample having completed or not completed the drawing are loaded by a loader mechanism consisting of an elevator  14  or the like while the evacuation atmosphere is maintained for the purpose of cross-exchange. The inside of this sample exchange chamber  12  has the structure to accommodate two sheets of sample and this chamber is moved upward and downward for selection of samples. 
     Moreover, in the evacuation chamber  20  adjacent to the sample exchange chamber  12  via a vacuum valve  13 , the work for evacuating the sample to the predetermined degree of vacuum condition from the atmospheric condition with a vacuum pump  22  or the work for returning the sample which has completed the drawing to the atmospheric condition with a leaking valve  21  are conducted. 
     With employment of such structure, the time required for the work to increase or evacuate the pressure between the vacuum condition and atmospheric condition and for loading of sample can be shortened and thereby the total number of sheets of samples for the drawing process of the electron beam lithography system can be increased. 
     Next, sample loading profiles will be explained. When a wafer  26  is used as the sample, following two kinds of techniques are proposed to load the sample to the stage chamber  2   a  from the evacuation chamber  20 . One is a direct wafer loading technique to load independently the wafer  26  placed on a top table  5  of the XY stage from the evacuation chamber  20  and the other is a pallet loading technique to load the wafer  26  together with a pallet  18  to the stage chamber  2   a  from the evacuation chamber  20  by providing a plate type board called the pallet within the evacuation chamber  20  and then placing the wafer  26  on the pallet  18 . 
     In the examples of FIG.  10  and FIG. 11, the wafer  26  is loaded together with the pallet  18 , while the wafer  26  is placed on the pallet  18 , between the stage chamber  2   a  and sample exchange chamber  12  using three pallets  18 . 
     However, the in-vacuum loading technique using such pallet  18  has following problems to be solved. 
     1) A pallet  18  is heavy and loading velocity is lowered. 
     Namely, a recent pallet  18  is provided with an electrostatic chuck to attract the wafer  26 . Since this electrostatic chuck is formed of ceramics which is mainly composed of alumina or the like, it is heavier in several times or several tens of times the weight of the wafer  26 . In addition, since the chuck is also provided with a ground pin  6  and a rotation positioning mechanism  8  of the wafer  26 , the weight of the pallet  18  reaches, as a result, about 1 kg to 5 kg. Therefore, it is difficult to realize the loading velocity identical to that for independently loading a wafer  26  and it has been considered as a cause for drop of total throughput of the electron beam lithography system. 
     2) Compatibility among the pallets  18 , namely error of warp of the wafer  26  during the holding thereof will give influence on the drawing accuracy. 
     In other words, an electrostatic chuck attracts the wafer  26  along the chuck surface, however, if a plurality of sheets of pallet  18  are used, differences in shape of attracting surface of electrostatic chuck among each pallet  18  and in mounting positions of structural elements give influence on reproducibility among wafers  26  of alignment accuracy to lower the accuracy. 
     The technique to load in direct the wafer  26  is capable of taking an adequate measure to such problem. In this technique, throughput can be improved because the sample loading velocity can be improved. 
     Moreover, since a plurality of pallets are not used, the wafer attracting surface always becomes constant on the XY stage and warp of the wafer due to the difference in the processing shape of attracting surface of each pallet is eliminated, drawing alignment accuracy can also be improved. 
     However, the technique to load in direct the wafer  26  also has the following problem. 
     3) Exchange of ground pin  6  lowers the rate of the apparatus operation. 
     In other words, if unwanted electric field or magnetic field is generated in the area near the trajectory of electron beam in the electron beam lithography system, the electron beam is bent to result in the fault of drawing pattern. Therefore, the sample must be kept within the equal potential. Therefore, the sample surface is maintained in the equal potential by pricking the sample with a stylus type projection called a ground pin  6 . 
     However, in the course of drawing the patterns on many samples, the end point of the ground pin  6  is worn out not to maintain the equal potential. Therefore, the ground pin  6  must be exchanged periodically. Since this ground pin  6  is set on the XY stage, the stage chamber  2   a  must be set to the atmospheric condition on the occasion of replacing the ground pin. Accordingly, the rate of the apparatus operation may be lowered. 
     4) It is difficult to remove particles deposited on the electrostatic chuck. 
     Namely, the wafer  26  must be fixed on the X-Y stage at the time of drawing a pattern, but there is an example that warp of 50 μm or more is generated on the wafer  26  coming to electron beam lithography process. If the wafer  26  warped as explained above is fixed for the drawing purpose, the alignment accuracy will be lowered. Therefore, an electrostatic chuck utilizing the electrostatic attracting phenomenon is used in order to fix such wafer under the good flatness condition. 
     However, if particles are adhered on the surface of electrostatic chuck, the wafer  26  is deformed to lower, on the contrary, the accuracy. In this case, therefore, the particles must be removed from the surface of chuck. The stage chamber  2   a  is also required to be set under the atmospheric condition while the particles are removed. Thereby, the rate of the apparatus operation may also be lowered. 
     The problem to be solved in the electron beam lithography system to load in direct the samples is that the ground pin can be exchanged and particles on the surface of electrostatic chuck for attracting the wafer can be removed only under the condition that the stage chamber is set to the atmospheric condition. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an electron beam lithography system which has solved the problems explained above of the related art and can enhance the rate of the apparatus operation and also improve the productivity without lowering the drawing accuracy. 
     In view of achieving the object explained above, the electron beam lithography system of the present invention forms the stage upper part, consisting of the electrostatic chuck part to be in contact with a sample on the XY stage and a ground pin part, in the structure which may be unloaded from the XY stage body and thereby allows this stage upper part to be moved to the other chamber of small volume partitioned by the vacuum valve from the stage chamber. Thereby, the cleaning of the electrostatic chuck surface and exchange of ground pin can be performed by taking out the stage upper part from the other chamber, namely without setting the stage chamber of large volume for drawing a pattern with the electron beam to the atmospheric condition. 
     As the other chamber of small volume, an adjustment chamber provided adjacent to the stage chamber or a sample exchange chamber providing a part to place the stage upper part in addition to the place for setting the sample is newly used. These adjustment chamber and sample exchange chamber are provided with a vacuum pump for evacuation and a leaking valve to return chambers to the atmospheric condition in order to realize adjustment of atmosphere for the vacuum and atmospheric conditions. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 is an upper cross-sectional view illustrating a first embodiment of a structure in relation to the present invention of an electron beam lithography system. 
     FIG. 2 is a side cross-sectional view of an electron beam lithography system of FIG.  1 . 
     FIG. 3 is an upper cross-sectional view illustrating a first example of structure in relation to the wafer exchange operation of the electron beam lithography system of FIG.  1 . 
     FIG. 4 is an upper cross-sectional view illustrating a second example of structure in relation to the wafer exchange operation of the electron beam lithography system of FIG.  1 . 
     FIG. 5 is a side cross-sectional view illustrating an example of structure in relation to the loading operation of stage upper part of the electron beam lithography system of FIG.  1 . 
     FIG. 6 is an upper cross-sectional view illustrating an example of structure in relation to loading operation of the stage upper part of the electron beam lithography system of FIG.  1 . 
     FIG. 7 is an upper cross-sectional view illustrating a second embodiment of the structure in relation to the present invention of the electron beam lithography system of the present invention. 
     FIG. 8 is a side cross-sectional view of the electron beam lithography system of FIG.  7 . 
     FIGS. 9A and 9B are side cross-sectional views illustrating examples of structure of the wafer loading mechanism at stage-chamber side of FIG.  7 . 
     FIG. 10 is an upper cross-sectional view illustrating an example of structure of an electron beam lithography system of the related art. 
     FIG. 11 is a side cross-sectional view of the electron beam lithography system of FIG.  10 . 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS 
     The preferred embodiment of the present invention will be explained in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. 
     FIG. 1 is an upper cross-sectional view illustrating a first embodiment of structure in relation to the present invention of an electron beam lithography system of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a side cross-sectional view of the electron beam lithography system of FIG.  1 . 
     The electron beam lithography system of this embodiment illustrated in FIG.  1  and FIG. 2 generally comprises an electron beam column  1  which is maintained in the degree of vacuum condition about 10 −6  to 10 −4  Pa and a stage chamber  2 . Within the stage chamber  2 , a stage drive mechanism  3  for moving a wafer  10 , which is a sample of drawing object, in the X-Y direction and an X-Y stage consisting of a stage guide  4  and a top table  5 . Therefore, the stage chamber  2  has a large volume. 
     On the top table  5 , the stage upper part consisting of a ground pin  6  for making constant the potential at the surface of the wafer  10 , an electrostatic chuck  7  for attracting the wafer  10  with electrostatic force and a wafer rotation adjustment mechanism  8  is provided in such a manner that it can be isolated from the top table  5  through electrostatic attraction. 
     Moreover, a sample exchange chamber  12  is provided via a vacuum valve  11  at the right side of the stage chamber  2 . The sample exchange chamber  12  is usually maintained in the degree of vacuum which is identical to that of the stage chamber  2  and has the wafer floors  15 ,  16  of upper and lower stages. This wafer floors  15 ,  16  are moved upward and downward by an elevator  14 . 
     In addition, at the right side of the sample exchange chamber  12 , an evacuation chamber  20  of small volume is provided via a vacuum valve  13 . This evacuation chamber  20  is connected with a leaking valve  21  and a vacuum pump  22  to change the atmosphere in the chamber between the predetermined degree of vacuum condition and the atmospheric condition. While the atmosphere in the chamber is set to the predetermined degree of vacuum condition, the vacuum valve  13  is opened and wafers  26  are exchanged between the sample exchange chambers  12  with a wafer loading mechanism  25  at evacuation chamber side. Since the evacuation chamber  20  has small volume, internal pressure can be adjusted within a short period of time. 
     Moreover, the evacuation chamber  20  is provided with a valve  24  at entrance of evacuation chamber and the wafer  26  can be loaded or unloaded using a wafer loading robot  23 . 
     As these three chambers of the stage chamber  2 , sample exchange chamber  12  and evacuation chamber  20 , the chambers identical to those of the related art may be used. 
     In this embodiment, a stage adjustment chamber  30  of small volume is provided as a fourth chamber in addition to these three chambers. 
     This small volume stage adjustment chamber  30  is provided adjacent to the stage chamber  2  via a vacuum valve  31  and is also provided with a leaking valve  33 , a vacuum pump  34  and an outer valve  32 . 
     The wafer exchange operation in the electron beam lithography system in the structure explained above will be explained with reference to FIGS. 1,  2  and FIGS. 3,  4 . 
     FIG. 3 is an upper cross-sectional view illustrating a first example of structure in relation to the wafer exchange operation of the electron beam lithography system of FIG.  1  and FIG. 4 is an upper cross-sectional view illustrating a second example of structure in relation to the wafer exchange operation of the electron beam lithography system of FIG.  1 . 
     The wafer exchange is performed as explained below in order to realize shortest wafer exchange time. 
     As illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2, a sheet of wafer  10  is placed on the top table  5  forming the X-Y stage mechanism in the stage chamber  2 . During the drawing on this wafer  10  with the electron beam, the wafer  26  as the next drawing object is loaded by the wafer loading robot  23  into the evacuation chamber  20  in the atmospheric condition. Here, the valve  14  at entrance of evacuation chamber is closed and the inside of evacuation chamber  20  is set to the predetermined vacuum condition using the vacuum pump  22 . 
     Next, as illustrated in FIG. 3, the vacuum valve  13  is opened and the wafer  26  is loaded to the floors  15  at the upper stage of the sample exchange chamber  12 . The wafer loading mechanism  25  at evacuation chamber side is returned to the original position, the vacuum valve  13  is closed and the floors  15 ,  16  are moved upward using the elevator  14  to select the floor  16  of the lower stage as the exchange position. 
     Even during the operation explained above, drawing on the wafer  10  is continued in the stage chamber  2  until completion of the drawing on the wafer  10  under the condition that the wafer floor  16  in the lower stage is determined as the exchange position. 
     Upon completion of drawing on the wafer  10 , the X-Y stage mechanism is moved along the stage guide  4  by the stage drive mechanism  3  and the top table  5  is returned to the exchange position. Next, the electrostatic chuck  7 , ground pin  6  and wafer rotation adjustment mechanism  8  are released from the wafer  10 . 
     As illustrated in FIG. 4, the vacuum valve  11  is opened and the wafer  10  is loaded to the wafer floor  16  of the lower stage of the sample exchange chamber  12  from the stage chamber  2  using the wafer loading mechanism  9  at a stage chamber side. 
     Thereafter, the wafer loading mechanism  9  at the stage chamber side is returned to the initial position, the wafer floors  15 ,  16  are moved downward using the elevator  14  in the sample exchange chamber  12  and the wafer floor  15  of the upper stage is determined as the exchange position. 
     Thereafter, the wafer  26  to which a pattern is not drawn is loaded, in turn, on the top table  5  in the stage chamber  2  from the sample exchange chamber  12  by the wafer loading mechanism  9  at the stage chamber side. After the vacuum valve  11  is closed, the wafer rotation adjustment mechanism  8  is operated to detect the predetermined rotating position, the ground pin  6  is moved downward to be in contact with the wafer  26  to provide the grounding and a voltage is impressed to the electrostatic chuck  7  to attract the wafer  26 . Under this condition, drawing of a pattern on the second wafer  26  can be performed. 
     Moreover, under this condition, the elevator  14  is moved upward again in the sample exchange chamber  12  and the first wafer  10  having completed the drawing located at the wafer floor  16  of the lower stage is moved to the exchange position. Here, the vacuum valve  13  is opened, the wafer  10  is then loaded to the evacuation chamber  20  by the wafer loading mechanism  25  at an evacuation chamber side, the vacuum valve  13  is closed and set to the atmospheric condition through the leaking valve, and thereafter the wafer  10  is taken out by opening the valve  14  at the entrance of the evacuation chamber. 
     Thereafter, the wafer which does not complete the drawing yet is loaded to the evacuation chamber and similar operation cycle is repeated. 
     With the operation as explained above, exchange of the wafers  10 ,  26  is performed only by movement of the wafers between the stage chamber  2  and sample exchange chamber  12 . Therefore, exchange can be made in the shortest period and thereby the throughput can be improved. In addition, since only the wafer is loaded unlike the related art technique to load the wafer between the stage chamber and sample exchange chamber using the pallet, weight of the object to be loaded can be reduced to the weight including several kilograms of the pallet and several tens of gram of the wafer. Accordingly, the time required for single exchange of the wafer can be shortened and high speed exchange can also be realized. 
     In the case where the drawing is performed on 200 wafers a day with the electron beam lithography system by means of the operations explained above, the ground pin  6  is worn out and therefore the pin must be exchanged after about two months. In this case, in the electron beam lithography system of the present embodiment, the stage upper part including the electrostatic chuck  7 , ground pin  6 , wafer rotation adjustment mechanism  8  is loaded to the small volume stage adjustment chamber  30  from the stage chamber  2  and after the inside of stage adjustment chamber  30  is returned to the atmospheric condition, the upper part of the stage can be removed. As explained above, since the stage upper part is isolated and moved to the small volume stage and thereafter it is removed, the time required for evacuation adjustment can be shortened and the working time required for exchange of ground pin  6  and cleaning of the wafer attracting surface of the electrostatic chuck  7  can also be reduced. 
     Such operations will then be explained practically with reference to FIGS. 5 and 6. 
     FIG. 5 is a side cross-sectional view illustrating an example of structure in relation to the loading operation of the stage upper part of the electron beam lithography system of FIG. 1, while FIG. 6 is an upper cross-sectional view illustrating an example of structure in relation to the loading operation of the stage upper part of the electron beam lithography system of FIG.  1 . 
     First, in FIG. 5, the stage adjustment chamber  30  is set to the identical degree of vacuum as the stage chamber  2  with the vacuum pump  34  and thereafter the vacuum valve  31  is opened. 
     As illustrated in FIG. 6, the stage upper part including the electrostatic chuck  7 , ground pin  6  and wafer rotation adjustment mechanism  8  is isolated from the top table  5  at the X-Y stage body side and is then loaded to the stage adjustment chamber  30  from the stage chamber  2  by a stage upper part loading mechanism  35 . 
     After the loading, a stage upper part loading mechanism  25  is returned to the initial position, the vacuum valve  31  is closed, the leaking valve  33  of FIG. 5 is opened, and the stage adjustment chamber  30  is exposed to the atmospheric condition. Thereafter, the outer valve  32  is in turn opened. With such an operation sequence, the stage upper part can easily be exposed to the atmospheric condition. 
     After the ground pin  6  is exchanged or the cleaning of the attracting surface of electrostatic chuck is performed, the stage upper part is returned to the stage adjustment chamber  30  and the outer valve  32  is closed to attain the identical degree of vacuum as the stage chamber  2  using the vacuum pump  34 . Thereafter, the vacuum valve  31  is opened and the stage upper part is returned on the X-Y stage within the stage chamber  2  using each loading mechanism. 
     Here, since the stage adjustment chamber  30  is smaller than the stage chamber  2  in the volume, it can be set to the atmospheric or vacuum condition within a short period of time. Accordingly, the time required for suspending the operation of apparatus in order to exchange the ground pin  6  or perform the cleaning of the attracting surface of the electrostatic chuck can be shortened than that of the related art. In other words, in the electron beam lithography system of the related art, when exchange of the ground pin  6  is requested, it is exchanged after radiation of electron beam is stopped and the large volume stage chamber  2  is set to the atmospheric condition and then evacuation of the stage chamber  2  is performed again. Therefore, about 12 hours or longer have been required to complete the necessary works and thereby the rate of the system operation has also been lowered. 
     As explained above, in this embodiment, the time required for exchange of the ground pin  6  can remarkably be shortened by providing the stage adjustment chamber  30  and stage upper part loading mechanism  35 , etc. In addition, if a particles is attracted by the wafer attracting surface of the electrostatic chuck  7  and when drawing is requested on the wafers in different sizes, such request can be solved only by exchanging the stage upper part. Namely, the rate of the system operation can be so far improved in comparison with the electron beam lithography system not including the stage adjustment chamber  30 . 
     Next, another embodiment of the electron beam lithography system of the present invention will be explained with reference to FIG.  7  and FIG.  8 . 
     FIG. 7 is an upper sectional view illustrating the second embodiment of structure in relation to the present invention of the electron beam lithography system, while FIG. 8 is a side cross-sectional view of the electron beam lithography system of FIG.  7 . 
     In this embodiment, in view of ruling out the stage adjustment chamber  30  of the electron beam lithography system of FIG. 1, the stage upper part consisting of the electrostatic chuck  7 , ground pin  6  and wafer rotation adjustment mechanism  8  or the like is structured to be loaded within a sample exchange chamber  12   a.    
     In other words, the sample exchange chamber  12   a  is provided with the leaking valve  33  and vacuum pump  34  for evacuation adjustment and moreover a stage upper part floor  17  is also provided in separation from the wafer floors  15 ,  16  of upper and lower stages. The sample exchange chamber  12   a  is also maintained usually at the identical degree of vacuum condition to the stage chamber  2   a  by the vacuum pump  34  in order to perform the wafer exchange work. However, on the occasion of conducting exchange of the ground pin  6  and cleaning of the attracting surface of the electrostatic chuck, the stage upper part is loaded to the stage upper part floor  17  from the stage chamber in the sequence similar to that of the first embodiment explained above. Thereafter, the stage upper part is set again to the atmospheric condition with the leaking valve  33 . 
     In addition, the sample exchange chamber  12   a  of this embodiment is provided with an outer valve  32  and the stage upper part can be taken out from the sample exchange chamber  12   a  through the outer valve  32  in order to exchange the ground pin  6  and remove particles at the attracting surface of the electrostatic chuck  7 . Since the sample exchange chamber  12   a  has the volume which is smaller than that of the stage chamber, adjustment of conditions between the evacuation atmosphere condition and atmospheric condition can be made within a short period of time and the suspending time of the system required for exchange of the ground pin  6  and cleaning of the attracting surface of electrostatic chuck can also be reduced. 
     As a wafer loading mechanism  9   a  at stage chamber side, the other mechanism may be provided in addition to the stage upper part loading mechanism and wafer loading mechanism, but in this embodiment, the structure is introduced so that only one loading mechanism can also be used to load the wafer and stage upper part as illustrated in FIG.  9 . 
     FIGS. 9A and 9B are side cross-sectional views illustrating examples of structure of the wafer loading mechanism at stage chamber side in FIG.  7 . The wafer loading mechanism  9   a  at stage chamber side of examples illustrated in FIG.  9 A and FIG. 9B includes an arm  92  arranging the first projections  90   a ,  90   b  and second projections  91   a ,  91   b  at the upper and lower portions. Both edges of the wafer  10  are place on the first projections  90   a ,  90   b , while both edges of the electrostatic chuck  7  forming the stage upper part for the purpose of loading. When the arm  92  is moved upward and downward, either of the wafer  10  and stage upper part can selectively be moved. 
     As explained above with reference to FIGS. 1 to  8  and FIGS. 9A and 9B, the electron beam lithography system of the present embodiment introduces the structure so that the part (stage upper part) which is in direct contact with the wafer  10  on the XY stage such as the electrostatic chuck  7 , ground pin  6 , wafer rotation adjustment mechanism  8  or the like can be isolated (unloaded freely) from the X-Y stage and such stage upper part can be loaded to a small volume chamber such as the newly provided stage adjustment chamber  30  or sample exchange chamber  12   a  or the like from the stage chamber  2 . 
     Accordingly, the stage upper part can be loaded or unloaded using the chamber which assures higher speed evacuation adjustment than that of the stage chamber  2 . As a result, the time, required to suspend the system operation for the works such as exchange of ground pin  6  and removal of particles at the surface of electrostatic chuck  7  which have been done during 12 hours or longer using the stage chamber  2  of the related art, can be reduced and thereby the rate of the system operation can also be improved. 
     The present invention is not limited only to the embodiments explained above with reference to FIGS. 1 to  8  and FIGS. 9A and 9B and allows desired changes or modification without departing from the scope of the subject matter of the present invention. For example, in the loading mechanisms in FIGS. 9A and 9B, two kinds of projections are provided for loading the wafer  10  illustrated in FIG.  9 A and the electrostatic chuck  7  illustrated in FIG. 9B, but it is also possible to introduce the structure in which cutting of the electrostatic chuck  7  is performed in the degree identical to the size of the wafer  10  and thereby first projections  92   a ,  92   b  at the upper part of the figure can be eliminated. 
     Moreover, in this embodiment, the stage upper part consisting of the ground pin  6 , electrostatic chuck  7  and wafer rotation adjustment mechanism  8  and the X-Y stage (top table  5 ) are provided to be isolated (unloaded freely) through the electrostatic attracting function, but it is also possible to introduce the structure that these can be isolated by the other mechanical structure. 
     As explained previously, according to the present invention, since exchange of ground pin and removal of particles on the surface of electrostatic chuck for attracting the sample can be performed, even in the electron beam lithography system to load in direct the sample, without exposing the stage chamber to the atmospheric condition, namely without lowering the rate of the system operation, productivity can be improved while maintaining high level drawing accuracy.